Hmong Culture in Healthcare

Religion

Healing Beliefs & Practices

Cultural Healing Practices

• Cultural Healing Practices

• Medical and spiritual causes of illness
• The liver is the center for human emotion
• Home therapies for common ailments
• Consult folk medicine doctor, ritual healers, and shamans for more complicated or severe problems
• Loss of soul: symptoms and treatment

Birth and Infancy

• Multiple supreme beings that are responsible for high level creations & functions of nature
• Individual spirits including ancestral spirits, house spirits, spirits in nature, and evil spirits that all influence the course of human life
• Humans have 12 souls, three of which are major souls (reincarnation, residing, and wandering)
• Reincarnation soul: the part of the soul that leaves the body after death and is reborn into another person's body
• Residing soul: stays with the body as it breaks down and later becomes the ancestral soul
• Wandering soul: leaves the body during dreams or to play with other souls. This soul is the most likely to be lost to evil spirits
• Shamans mediate between the visual and spiritual worlds through ritual practices

• Birth and Infancy

• Natural births vs C-sections
• Placenta
• Postpartum stage: the mother
• Postpartum stage: the baby
• Birthing ritual
• Speaking to and about children

Death and Dying

• Death and Dying

• End of life care: dying at home vs in the hospital
• Death rituals and funerals
• Special considerations

Nursing Interventions

• Make sure to ask any healing or medicinal actions already taking place.
• Be open to their ideas
• healing
• pre/post surgery rituals
• childbirth
• Views on autopsies.

The Hmong: Who are they and where did they come from?

References

Family Life Process

• Patriarchal family structure
• Elders highly respected, are taken care of by younger family members, usually eldest son
• Entire family often collaborates to make medical decisions
• Head of the family must be consulted first

• Originated in central Asia (what is now Mongolia) in 2300 B.C.E.
• Largest population is in China, but populations are dispersed throughout southeast Asia and the US
• Population in China: ~2 million
• Population in US: ~200,000 - mainly located in MN, WI, and CA
• The Hmong are a culture with their own language, customs, traditions, and religious beliefs

Hmong Cullture. (2011, June 1). Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://www.hmongculture.net

Hmong Cultural Profile. (2015, January 1). Retrieved April 23, 2015, from https://ethnomed.org/culture/hmong/hmong-cultural-profile

Minnesota Council of Nonprofits. Hmong Refugee Resettlement. Retrieved December 22, 2006. Link no longer available, 2010.

Mote, S. M. (2004) Hmong and American: Stories of Transition to a Strange Land (pp.80-81, 283-286). Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Hmong National Development, Inc. & Hmong Cultural Resource Center (2003). Hmong 2000 Census Publication: Data and Analysis, pp. 4-8). Washington, D.C., St. Paul, Minnesota. Also retrieved September 19, 2006, from http://hndinc.org/content/view/41/

Communication

Diet and Nutrition

• Looking directly at a person or making eye contact is considered disrespectful
• Men and women are expected to keep a respectful distance from one another
• Many older Hmongs may not speak English, though most of the younger population does
• May not give outright positive or negative answers, even when they want to

• Hmong meals are generally considered very healthy
• Meals are usually either boiled, steamed, or stir-fried
• Common ingredients include chilies, cilantro, ginger, green onions, garlic, mint, fish sauce, white rice, a small portion of meat, and vegetables
• Do not make or eat desserts
• Traditionally have not had beverages with meals, but (especially in America) this has changed
• health implications

Nursing Implications

• Do not address women by first name. Use Ms. or Mrs.
• They may not make direct eye contact but listen attentively
• Use appropriate body language and tone.
• Build trust. Be open to their ideas and suggestions.
• Privacy
• Alternative medicines/herbs/healing
• Question informing patient before or after family.
• Use an interpreter
• Explain!
• Blood withdraws
• Immunizations
• Chronic diseases
• Medications

Hmong Culture in Healthcare

By: Brittney Sawyer and Allie Gray