Identity, ideology and medicine: health attitudes and behavior among Hindu religious renunciates.

In-depth interviews and participant observation was conducted with 14 Hindu religious renunciates, 70 years or older. Despite having taken vows renouncing concern for physical pain or comfort, respondents differed markedly in their attitudes toward pain and their rationale for utilizing medical treatment. They differed still further in their use of Ayurvedic and allopathic medicine, with the most culturally conservative accepting only Ayurvedic medicine. Rejection of allopathic medicine tended to be associated with a highly systematized religious world-view. The results are discussed in terms of both the ideological conflict between religious world-view and medical usage, and the need for sophisticated distinction of religious world-view if research on the religious factor of health care utilization is to prove fruitful.