Knowledge and beliefs about hypertension among Jamaican female clients

Hypertension is a major health problem in the Caribbean Region. If health promotion programs are to be approriate and effective, the client's knowledge and beliefs regarding this chronic health problem need to be identified. The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge level and beliefs about hypertension among female clients attending health care clinics in Jamaica, West Indies. Data were collected from 240 female clients with the use of a pretested interview schedule. Findings indicated that the respondents were of low socio-economic status, lacked knowledge regarding the predisposing factors and characteristics of the disease and had a number of misconceptions surrounding the illness. Implications for nurses and health care providers are discussed with suggestions for future research. (AU)

Postcolonial nursing education in Trinidad and Tobago

In this article the impact of the developed nations on basic nursing education in Trinidad and Tobago in the postcolonial period is discussed and analysed. Subsequent to self-government in 1956, the national government, in its efforts to become independent of its reliance on Great Britain, turned to the United States and Canada for technical and financial aid. Consequently, sources such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization, and the Canadian International Development Agency were major avenues for the provision of ideas, concepts and values in health planning and policy making with primary health care endorsed by the government. Nursing education was thus influenced by these industrialized concepts and values. The impact of socioeconomic and nursing events in the Caribbean region coupled with local initiatives taken by the indigenous leadership to improve nursing education resulted in a program that was an amalgamation of British, North American, and indigenous features. (AU)

The development of health care policies in Trinidad and Tobago: autonomy or domination?

This article is part of a study that described and analyzed the development of nursing education in Trinidad and Tobago from self-government in 1956 to 1986, with special emphasis on the forces that helped to shape the society from colonial times, and consequently, nursing education. Adaptation and application of major concepts from theories of underdevelopment and development and colonialism formed the basis of the study's theoretical framework. The article focuses on the impact of the metropolitan countries on the development of health care polices. Because of the nation's historical legacy of colonialism and its current linkages with the United States and Canada, a major area fundamental to the analysis was to determine whether those two countries had superseded traditional British influences in determining health care policies. This raised the issue of whether or not health care policies could be autonomously developed to meet the needs of the people. (AU)