Concepts of anemia among low income Nicaraguan women

Anemia is a common health problem among women throughout the world, however, there has been minimal research on women's concepts of anemia. The purpose of this study was to examine concepts of anemia in low income Nicaraguan women. A qualitative design was used. Audio-taped open-ended interviews in Spanish with 14 women were used to obtain data. Tapes were transcribed and content analyzed. The findings indicate that few of the women had biomedically accurate concepts of anemia, such as that it was due to lack of iron from poor eating. Others held folk medical beliefs including home remedies, for example drinking the milk of a mare or beet juice and eating certain foods such as bean soup. Most of the women did not know any symptoms of anemia and a few reported that it can develop into leukemia. These concepts of anemia are instructive for nurses working with patients from Nicaragua and will be useful in developing nursing interventions to alleviate this public health problem.