Pile sort techniques for primary health care program development : analysis of siSwati terms for acute respiratory infections

This paper uses a pile sort technique to explore categories for 30 siSwati terms for ARIs. Researchers interviewed 29 mothers of children under five, randomly selected from five urban and 12 rural sites throughout Swaziland, as well as 17 health workers and 13 traditional healers whom the mothers would contact if their child became ill. Results suggest that there are siSwati terms that correspond to many of the signs and symptoms of upper and lower ARIs. Respondents differentiated these terms in two groups: (1) terms associated with the symptoms of common colds or flu that mothers manage at home, and (2) terms that refer to more serious illnesses for which caretakers usually seek further professional treatment. However, the boundary between these groups is not always clear. The researchers expected differences in the folk and biomedical classification systems to be most clearly pronounced when comparing the results of mothers and healers with those of health providers, because the mothers and healers are more likely to be familiar with the local ethnomedical system rather than the biomedical system familiar to the health providers. However, the differences were not as marked as expected. Includes references. (Author abstract)