Tesafo : Eksistensi Roh dalam Masalah Kesehatan Masyarakat Sebuah Studi Kasus di Pulau Nias

Abstract

Introduction the background of this paper is the phenomenon that people easily claim that someone has been affected by tesafo illness based on the belief in spirits that cause illness. The purpose of this research is to formulate the concept of tesafo illness in Nias society, the concept and its consequences on people's lives, especially in dealing with medical services. The informants involved in this study were 35 people consisting of 3 categories, namely people with knowledge of tesafo, medicine men and medical personnel. This research method uses a qualitative approach with primary data derived from in-depth interviews, observation, live in, and documentation and the databases the author uses are Pubmed and Google scholar. Data processing used the Nvivo 12 application to organize themes from informants' narratives. The results of this study show that tesafo has a strong socio-cultural meaning because it contains the concept of spirit, the concept of illness and the concept of traditional medicine that has developed in the community before they knew religion and medical services. In many ways, these traditional concepts are reinforced by religious understanding. The discussion of this study expects further research related to the content contained in the types of plants used by the Nias community. The conclusion of this study shows that the concept of spirits in Nias society has a socio-cultural dimension, which influences the dynamics of people's lives in understanding sickness and illness and in seeking treatment.