Impact of Culture and Beliefs in Brain Tumor Patients’ Care in Indonesia, Indonesia

A brain tumor is a group of neoplasms affecting the central nervous system, and it has its own unique characteristics of disease, prognosis, and treatment. In Indonesia, there are many challenges to providing comprehensive brain tumor management due to many factors—patient-related factors such as lack of knowledge, cancer beliefs and treatment beliefs; patient/health care provider relationship factors such as paternalistic communication style and unmet need for information; treatment- related factors such as emotional and financial burden and severe side effects of treatment; and socioeconomic and health care system-related factors. These factors are strongly determined by the culture and beliefs of Indonesian people which can have both a positive and negative impact on brain tumor care. Indonesian culture can negatively impact the management of brain tumor patients by delaying the outreach for medical help and discouraging their adherence to treatment. Indonesian brain tumor patients often seek medical assistance in the later stages, which leads to poor treatment outcome. In contrast, a strong support system from family has a positive emotional impact on the patient, making it easier to overcome such stressful conditions.