<b>Family health: a reality present in the multi-professional staff</b> - DOI: 10.4025/cienccuidsaude.v7i0.6584

Abstract

Family health is a challenge for health professionals in three levels of attention: primary, secondary and tertiary. This work aims to stimulate health professionals to re-think their practices towards the promotion of family health. We understand family as a group of people living in the same space, having or not blood ties or only through co-habitation or affective bonds. When discussing family health, we noticed that there are still gaps, many regarding questions about the specificity of family as a client. There are doubts whether taking care of the family is the same as taking care of a group, and whether while assisting different members of the family we are attending the family unit, too. However, it is important to point out that working with families, in nursing, has been felt as a challenging activity, becoming essential that the multi-professional staff learn to think about the family and, consequently, develop a special practice in the context of illness and health, based on the family reality, taking into account its forms, meanings and values.