Time Orientations of Indian Mothers and White Nurses

Abstract

Cultural values are important for nurses because beliefs and values have been shown to influence health behaviours (e.g., pain perception: Bates, 1987; perinatal care: Lee, 1986). Little is known about how nurses' values relate to those of people in different ethnic groups, such as Native Indians (Brink, 1984; Tripp-Reimer, 1984). Furthermore, relatively little is known about the current values of North American Indian peoples and no formal studies have been done with Canadian Indians. This study is a first step in describing a particular value: time orientation. Time orientation was conceptually structured by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) as the preferential ordering of time into the Past, the Present and the Future. Time orientations are thought to be a problem when nurse - client differences or misinterpretations hamper health care interactions (Tripp-Reimer, 1984). For example, it is generally held that there are differences in time orientations between Canadian Indians and their predominately White health care providers. Specifically, a White health care professional could have a Future-oriented perspective in responding to an Indian person - failing to perceive the situation from the Indian perspective of Past or Present-orientation (Brant, 1983; England, 1986). The potential for such differences and misunderstandings is the greatest among recent Indian migrants to predominately White cities and among northern Indians where there is a high turn-over of White health care workers (Young, 1988). Basic descriptive research is needed before the hypothesis that ethnically-influenced time orientation differences hamper health care can be tested.