‘I am absolutely shattered’: The impact of chronic low back pain on Australian Aboriginal people

Abstract

Contrary to previous assumptions, CLBP is profoundly disabling for some Aboriginal people and a priority health concern. Issues of gender, cultural obligations and the emotional consequences of CLBP are important consideration for health care. These findings, and the contextual approach used to gain an in-depth understanding of CLBP, may be relevant to populations elsewhere.

Disabling chronic low back pain as an iatrogenic disorder: a qualitative study in Aboriginal Australians

“…These findings highlight the potential of these approaches to increase disability via creating or reinforcing negative beliefs. We have previously reported how the maintenance of Aboriginal cultural beliefs and practices was integral to many participants’ lives34; however, it appeared that CLBP beliefs were vulnerable to unhelpful Western influences. This raises concerns about the detrimental effects of biomedical oriented CLBP healthcare practices that dominate the management of LBP in Western societies 2…”

How well does the National Disability Insurance Scheme respond to the issues challenging Indigenous people with disability?

“…Indigenous peoples' perceptions of disability have been discussed extensively in the literature regarding disability in Indigenous communities (DiGiacomo, Davidson et al, THEORETICAL RESEARCH ORIGINAL ARTICLE Gething, 1994;Gilroy, 2009;Gilroy, Donelly, Colmar, & Parmenter, 2016;Kendall & Marshall, 2004;King, Brough, & Knox, 2014;Kuppers, 2013;Lin et al, 2012;Lowell, 2013;Maher, 1999;Nagel, Thompson, & Spencer, 2008;Sloane, 2003;Stephens, Cullen, Massey, & Bohanna, 2014;Wolstenholme, 1996). There are differences in the ways of conceptualising ideas of disability between Australian mainstream services and many Indigenous communities whose languages do not include a single word for an integrated notion of disability.…”

“…Caring for a person with disability in Indigenous society is traditionally assigned to family members (Ariotti, 1999;Clements et al, 2010;Farrelly & Lumby, 2008;Gething, 1994;Gilroy, Donelly et al, 2016;Green et al, 2014;Kendall & Marshall, 2004;Lin et al, 2012;Nagel et al, 2008;Roy & Balaratnasingam, 2014;Sloane, 2003;Stephens et al, 2014). The care requirements can burden family members when the person with disability has complex and multiple requirements, or there are many persons in the family in concurrent need of such care, or other problems currently exist for the family (e.g., poverty and unemployment).…”

“…1994; Gilroy, 2010;Green, 2013;Hyde et al, 2016;Kuppers, 2013;Lin et al, 2012;Lowell, 2013;Nagel et al, 2008;Wolstenholme, 1996). The scarcity of services in remote areas often means that Indigenous people with chronic impairment travel frequently and/or choose to dislocate their families and leave their communities to access proper services (Farrelly & Lumby, 2008;Green et al, 2016).…”

“…In some remote areas where English is not the first language of Indigenous people, lack of accessible information regarding disability services is also reported (Farrelly & Lumby, 2008;Greenstein et al, 2016b;Stephens et al, 2014). The different ways of conceptualising disability between "supply-side" and "demand-side" lead to service providers' miscommunication and Indigenous people's poor participation in assessment processes and a lack of awareness of service availability (Farrelly & Lumby, 2008;Gilroy, 2009Gilroy, , 2010Green et al, 2016;Greenstein et al, 2016a;Lin et al, 2012;Nagel et al, 2008). The imperative to enhance community planning, implementation and control of disability services is repeatedly recommended as the most significant and feasible strategy for change in support provision for Indigenous people with disability (Ariotti, 1999;Dew et al, 2014;Gilroy, Dew et al, 2016;Gilroy, Donelly et al, 2016;Green, 2013;Green et al, 2016;Greenstein et al, 2016aGreenstein et al, , 2016bHersh et al, 2015;Kendall & Marshall, 2004;Lowell, 2013;Nagel et al, 2008;Stephens et al, 2014).…”