THE FAMILY AND FAMILY HEALTH

Family

 The family is a very important social institution.

 It is generally accepted that the family is the first and oldest social institution in society. The family
is consist of parents and children who interact with one another. Through this socialization process,
parents are able to hand down socially accepted cultural practice that serves as initial training for
the young to become future responsible citizen in the future.

 Refers to a group of people united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption. As a group, the members
of the family live together under one roof and that they constitute a single housekeeping unit.

 It is a universal institution that has the following common characteristics:

 Associate with one another in their respective roles as husbands and wife, mother and father, son
and daughter or brother ans sisters

 As the members of the family enjoy life together playing their different roles, they tend to create a
common culture.

There have been significant changes in the way people regard the family as a

social institution. Friedman (1992) defines it as “ Two or more persons who

are joined together by bonds of sharing and emotional closeness and who

identify themselves as being part of the family” .

Key Points! A clients family includes any person that he/she

identifies as a family member.

FIVE UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FAMILY

 A family is a social system

 A family perform certain basic function

 A family has structure

 A family has its own cultural values and rules

 A family moves through stages in its life cycle

Key Points! The basic function and task of a family focus on providing

physical health, providing for mental health, socializing its members,

reproducing, and providing for economic well being.

1. Provision of Physical needs: food, shelter, clothing, safety and health-care

2. Allocation of Resources: careful planning and use of family money, material good, space and
abilities

3. Division of Labor: assigning the workload, including responsibility for household income and
household management

4. Socialization: guiding towards acceptable standards of elimination, food intake, sexual drive,
respect for others and their possession and sense of spirituality

5. Reproduction, recruitment and release: bearing or adopting children, adding new members by
marriage, and allowing members to leave

6. Maintenance of Order: interaction and communication oppurtinities, discipline, affection, sexual

7. Assistance with fitting into the larger society: community, schools, spiritual center and
organization

8. Maintenance of motivation and morale: recognition, affection, encouragement, family loyalty,

FAMILY STRUCTURES

- Different structures emanates due to changing family patterns and

cultural; variations practiced by family members in a given society.

Classifications of Family Based on Internal Organization:

1. Nuclear Family

 It consists of husband and wife ( and perhaps one or more

children)

2. Extended Family

 Includes relatives (aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins) in

addition to the nuclear family.

3. Single-Parent Family

 Is formed when one parent leaves the nuclear family because of

death, divorce, or desertion or when a single person decides to

have or adopt a child.

4. Blended Family

 Is formed when parents bring unrelated children from prior

5. Alternative Family

 Relationship include multi-adult households, “skip-generation” families (grandparents, caring for

CHARACTERISTICS OF A HEALTHY FAMILY

 Healthy families maintain a spiritual foundation

 Healthy families make the family the top priority

 Healthy families ask and give respect

 Healthy families communicates and listen

 Healthy families values service to others

 Healthy families expect and offer acceptance

FAMILY STAGES AND TASK

STAGES TASKS

Beginning Family Tasks

 Establishing a mutually satisfying marriage.

 Planning to have or not to have children.

 Learn to live well to their families of orientation.

Child Bearing Having and adjusting

to infant.

 Supporting the needs of all three members.

 Renegotiating marital relationships.

 Engage in health education about well child care and how to integrate a new member into a family

Family with pre-school Adjusting to cost of family life.

 Adapting to needs of pre-coping with parental loss of energy

Family with School Age

 Adjusting to the activity of growing children.

 Encouraging and supporting children’s educational achievements.

Family with Teenagers and Young Adults

 Maintaining open communication among members.

 Family loosen family ties to allow adolescents more freedom and prepare them for life on their
own.

 Violence, accidents, homicide, suicide- are major cause of death in adolescents.

 Nurse working c families @ this stage needs to spend time counseling members on safety,

safer sex practices, proper care and danger of chemical abuse.

 Supporting ethical and moral values within the family.

 Balancing freedom with responsibility of teenagers.

 Releasing young adults with appropriate rituals and assistance.

The Launching Stage Family: The

Family With Young Adult

 The stage at which children leave to establish their own households considered as most difficult
stage because it appears to represent the breaking up of the family.( they get married)

 Stage that may represent a loss of self esteem for parents who feel themselves being replaced by
other people in their children’s lives. Illness imposed on a family at this stage can be detrimental to
the family structure, breaking up an already disorganized and non cohesive group.

 Many young adults return home to live with their family after college until they can afford their
own apartment or get married. Nurse can serve as an important counselor to such a family . Can
help parents see that what their children are doing is what they spend a long time preparing them to
do or that leaving home is a positive , not a negative step in family growth

The family of Middle Years-

 Couple view this stage as prime time of their lives, (an opportunity to travel , economic
independence and time to spend on hobby), or as a period of gradual decline( lacking the constant
activity and stimulation of children in the home, finding life boring without them or experiencing an
empty nest syndrome.
The family in Retirement or older Age

 Individuals are more apt to suffer - from chronic and disabling conditions than younger persons.

 Grandparents care for their children while the parents are at work.

 To families at this stage who don’t have children- they remain important because they can offer a
great deal of support and advice to young adults who are just beginning their families.

LEVELS OF PREVENTION IN FAMILY HEALTH

1. Primary Prevention

 By measures designed to promote positive general health

 Development of good health habits and hygiene, proper nutrition, proper attitude towards
sickness, proper and prompt utilization of available health and medical facilities.

 Specific protection: Use of specific measures against specific disease agents like protection of the
individual or establishment of barriers against agents in the environment. Includes:

a) Control of means of spread of vector control, sanitation of food, milk, water and air, proper
sewerage disposal, proper disposal and or disinfection of soiled articles or clothing, eradication or
animal reservoir.

b) Increasing resistance of the individual by specific immunization.

c) Hand washing observed strictly.

2. Secondary Prevention

 Consist of early diagnosis and prompt treatment of disease in order to arrest the disease/ problem
and to prevent its spread to other people.

Example of secondary prevention :

a) Public education to promote breast self examination .

b) Screening programs for hypertension, uterine cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, STD

3. Tertiary Prevention

 Begins in early period of recovery from illness and consist of such activities as consistent and
appropriate administration of medications to optimize therapeutic effects, moving and positioning
to prevent complications of immobility and active and passive exercises to prevent

disability.

 Includes minimizing residual disability and helping the client learn to live productively with
limitations.
 Intensive periodic follow up and treatment- done to prevent relapses in certain diseases, to effect
complete cure in disease which have relapse tendency.