Taking account of the family: family care in concrete situations

Abstract

The family focus will help the health professional to provide answers both to the needs of the patient and to those of his family. In this paper some of the frequent situations in the practice of Primary Care in which a family approach to the case can be made are discussed. Those are the care of chronic patients, the family approach in terminal patients, the families of the mentally ill, and the family approach in abusive consumers of alcohol. In the case of chronic patients, their disease requires an adaptation by the whole family to the new situation. This on occasion gives rise to situations of conflict and at times to illness in other family members if the health personnel are not attentive to the situation. Six simple pieces of advice are described that can help in implementing the psycho-educational approach in the treatment of chronic diseases. The aim of Primary Care in the case of terminal diseases, death and grief, is to channel this impact in the family of the deceased above all. So that it can have a reparative effect, and to control its repercussions in order to avoid the appearance of symptoms in the future. In the approach to families of the mentally ill, family strategies can be posed that contribute to changing the behaviour of the patient and, at the same time, provide support to the family so that it can face up to such situations. This acquires special importance in the family approach in cases of abusive consumers of alcohol.