Beliefs about health and illness in three countries: Britain, South Africa and Uganda

Abstract

Five hundred participants from three national groups completed a 124-item Health and Illness scale, constructed and validated in the UK. The study examined the idea that people from developing countries believe in more social, fatalistic and supernatural explanations for health and illness than people from developed countries, who emphasize individual and 'natural world' accounts. White British, black Ugandans and black and mixed-blood South Africans in this study differed on a number of personal demographics, which had to be statistically controlled by co-varying out specific variables. Factor analysis of the various sections of the questionnaire reveal clear, interpretable factors which nearly always accounted for 50-60% of the variance. Analysis of co-variance on the factor scores frequently showed significant differences between the three groups. Factors concerning the provision and efficacy of western, orthodox medicine, as well as fatalistic factors seemed to discriminate most between the three national groups, as predicted. The results are discussed in terms of the difficulties of carrying out cross-national research (specifically etic research of this type) on health beliefs and behaviours.