THE ROLES OF WESTERN BIOMEDICINE AND FOLK MEDICINE IN RURAL SOLOMON ISLANDS: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF VILLAGERS' RESPONSE TO ILLNESS

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore factors determining treatment-seeking behaviors of villagers in a rural Roviana society of the Solomon Islands. Participants (n ≈ 116) were interviewed every evening for 42 days about the occurrence of illnesses and how they had been treated. The study period was divided into two 22 days during which a nurse was stationed in the village and 20 days when the nurse was absent. As the results show, nurse‘s presence had a negative effect on traditional folk medicine use (OR ≈ 0.39, [95% CI 0.21-0.72]). Fever or headache was treated more preferably with biomedicine (3.82 [1.81-8.07] or 6.75 [2.75-16.55], respectively), whereas <I>putuputu</I>, an illness with an indigenous etiology, was treated with the latter (34.7 [3.13-384.41]). In addition, biomedicine was preferably used (7.72 [2.65-22.44]) for the treatment of severe illnesses. While folk medicine was used in 40% of all ill person-days, it has likely been partly displaced by effective Western biomedicine. Still, some folk medicine functioned as a culturally indispensable element in treating indigenous illnesses.