Self-Meaning of Oligodactyly: Health Communication Study of People with Oligodactyly in the Village of Ulutaue, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

A health communication of the people with oligodactyly aims at exploring the meanings associated with deformities of physical organs in fingers and/or toes from birth. This study discusses how fifteen people with oligodactyly in the village Ulutaue, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, construct themselves having physical abnormalities and physical organs different from those of other people through communicating with the surrounding environment. This research uses a subjective interpretive method with a health communication approach. The results explain that the people with oligodactyly are as the subjects and are considered to have their self-meaning, including the meaning of the physical abnormalities with the positive and negative self, the physical organ limitations with the self-meaning of feel ashamed, worthy to be pitied, will to work hard, patience and encouragement. The physical organ abnormalities provide a "scary, goose-bumpy, pity, and disgusting" image for the people who see them. To feel as "like anything" becomes the basis for the appearance of subjective meanings of every action in constructing oneself.