I am an Asian Indian graduate student in nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I recently read the article by Bhungalia and Kemp, "(Asian) Indian Health Beliefs and Practices Related to the End of Life" in the January/March 2002 (vol. 4, no. 1) issue of JHPN. I am a Hindu and enjoyed reading this article. I hope this article will promote greater awareness among the American public about this topic. The number of Asian Indians settling in the United States has been increasing for many years now and a number of the initial immigrants have started to age. It's becoming important for American nurses to be informed about end-of-life health beliefs and practices of Hindus. The authors of this article have included important information and raised some important points, including the fact that Hindus in the United States may not be good speakers of English.
As I read the article, there were some points that I would like to clarify and share my thoughts and knowledge in these areas.
1. The title of this article gives an impression that the article deals with Asian Indian health beliefs and practices related to the end of life. The term Asian Indians refers to Indians belonging to Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and other religions. As stated in the article, the majority of the Indian population is Hindu. I feel that this article specifically discusses Hindu beliefs and practices rather than Asian Indian health beliefs and practices.
2. I think the custom that Hindu parents choose to live with their youngest son is not a widely prevalent one. I think that whenever there are different customs followed, it would be better to mention all the customs or not mention any at all. When one custom is explicitly mentioned (such as this comment about living with the youngest son) when in reality the custom differs based on the geographical location of Hindus in India, the reader might tend to remember and generalize the custom mentioned in the article to all Hindus.
3. The statement in the article that says that vegetarianism is universal among devout Hindus is not true. There are many nonvegetarian Hindus. To say that devout Hindus are vegetarians may imply that nonvegetarian Hindus are not devout, and in my experience, that is not the case.
4. Although it is ideal for a Hindu to pray before eating, it is not a very common practice now among Indian Hindus.
5. It is no longer a common practice to forbid women to prepare food during the menstrual cycle.
Once again, I appreciate the fact that this article was published in your journal. I hope my points will help your readers take a closer look at the article and reassess some of the information it contained.
Prashanth Reddy Anumandla, BScN, RN
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