Indigenous Women's Worldview on Breast Cancer: A Qualitative Approach Based on a Life History

Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer affects the physical, emotional, family, symbolic, and spiritual dimensions of women’s lives. Among Indigenous women, this experience is interpreted through their own cultural systems, ancestral knowledge, care practices, spirituality, and community ties. Objective: To understand the worldview of a Baré Indigenous woman regarding breast cancer, based on her life history and her journey through illness, treatment, and recovery. Materials and methods: A qualitative study was conducted, grounded in the interpretive paradigm, using the life history method and hermeneutic discourse analysis. The informant was a Baré Indigenous woman and breast cancer survivor. Information was collected through in-depth interviews, recorded with informed consent, transcribed, and analyzed through coding, categorization, reduction, and thematic interpretation. Results: Five central categories emerged: Indigenous culture, lived experiences, emotions, attitude, and spirituality. Indigenous culture was expressed through the value assigned to ancestral knowledge, natural nutrition, traditional medicine, and family as a source of care and support. The lived experiences were marked by diagnosis, mastectomy, biomedical treatment, and the reorganization of daily life. Emotions ranged from fear, anguish, uncertainty, and hope. A positive attitude, family support, faith, and spirituality favored the resignification of the disease as a limiting experience, but also as an opportunity for learning, strength, and vital renewal. Conclusions: The Indigenous worldview of breast cancer integrates body, culture, family, spirituality, and the meaning of life; therefore, health care must be intercultural, humanized, and ethically respectful.