Role of family in Health and Disease

• Dr. Alok Acharya

 Role of family in Health and disease

• The family is a group of biologically related

individuals
• Family performs many functions.
• Certain functions of family are relevant to health
and health behaviour,
• They are important from the medical-sociology
point of view
1. CHILD REARING
• community health workers are concerned, is the physical care of the
dependent young in order that they may survive to adulthood and
perpetuate the family.
• child rearing differs from society to society, and from time to time,
• this depends upon factors such as
• capital resources,
• level of knowledge,
• state of technology
• and system of values
• Patterns of child care (e.g., feeding, nutrition, hygiene, sleep, clothing,
discipline, habit training) are passed on from one generation to
another.
• In many societies, child care is socially determined by tradition.
• child care is more permissive in the East starting with the "on
demand" schedule at mother's breast.
• in the West, child care is more rigid and confined to a set of rules
• When the community health worker seeks to improve the health of
the child, he meets several obstacles:
• Traditional ways which are supported by appeals to religion and other
sanctions.
• Variations between societies may be complex and difficult to change.
2. SOCIALIZATION
• Responsibility of the family is to socialize the "stream of new-born
barbarians.“
• It’s the latent function or process whereby individuals develop
qualities essential for functioning effectively in the society in which
they live in.
 2. SOCIALIZATION
• Teaching the young the values of society and transmitting
information, culture, beliefs, general codes of conduct, by example
and precept, to make children fit for membership in the wider society
of which the family is a part.
• Organizations such as schools and religious places perform cultural functions
for the introduction of the young into adult society.
• The young are persuaded, given punishments, rewards for good behaviour –
3. PERSONALITY FORMATION
• This is a latent function of family.
• It is an area in which sociology comes closest to psychology.
• Early experience in the family, mainly with the father, mother and
siblings who provide the earliest and most immediate component of the
child's external environment.
• The capacity of an individual to withstand stress and strain and the way in which
he interacts with other people.
• The family acts as a "placenta“
• excluding various influences, modifying others that pass through it.
• contributes in laying the foundation of physical, mental and social health of the
child.
 4. CARE OF DEPENDENT ADULTS
• (a) Care of the sick and injured :
• In all forms of society, adults may become dependent either
through injury, illness.
• Care of illness is of great importance in determining the attitudes
of society where the illness arouses fear (e.g., leprosy) .
• Family is charged with the responsibility of such illness.
• The family is expected to provide the front-line care, particularly
the mother.
• Studies have shown that the family does more nursing than the
hospital, even in highly developed countries.
 CARE OF DEPENDANT ADULTS
• (b) Care of women during pregnancy and child birth :
• care of women during periods of recognized dependency, i.e.,
pregnancy and childbirth is an important function of the family.
• The attitude of society to pregnancy is associated to infant deaths,
premature and stillbirths, maternal morbidity and mortality.
• In many societies women are given financial help, maternity leave
facilities, diet and nutritional supplements and decreased
responsibilities during pregnancy and puerperium
CARE OF DEPENDANT ADULTS

(c) Care of the aged and handicapped :

• The increased number of such people have created new problems in
terms of long term care and specialist facilities.
• Without the support of the family, no amount of medical care can
succeed.
• Joint family provides for such support.
5. STABILIZATION OF ADULT
PERSONALITY
• The family is like a "shock absorber" to the stress and strains of life.
The stress could be injury, illness, births, deaths, tension, emotional
upsets, worry, anxiety, economic insecurity and the like.
• Family has an important function in the stabilization of the personality
of both adults and children, and in meeting their emotional needs.
• family provides an opportunity, for adults and children, for release of
tension so that the individual can attain mental equilibrium and strive
to maintain a stable relationship with other people.
 6. FAMILIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO
DISEASE
• The stress of modern living has increased the importance of mental
illness as a public health problem.
• Alcoholism and narcotic addiction are also a reflection of this trend.
• Chronic illnesses such as peptic ulcer, colitis, high blood pressure,
rheumatism, skin diseases are accepted as "stress diseases" having a
prominent emotional element in their development.
6. FAMILIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO
DISEASE
• The members of a family share a pool of genes and a common
environment and together, these decide their susceptibility to
disease.
• Certain diseases such as haemophilia, colour blindness, diabetes and
mental illness are known to run through families.
• Schizophrenia, psychoneurosis and some forms of mental deficiency
are also known to have a familial incidence.
• The family is often the playground also for such communicable
diseases as tuberculosis, common cold, scabies, diphtheria, measles,
mumps, rubella, chickenpox, dysentery, diarrhoea, and enteric fever.
 6. FAMILIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO
DISEASE
• These diseases are known to spread rapidly in families because of the
common environment which the family members share.
• Incidence of congenital malformation is higher among offsprings of
consanguineous as compared with non-consanguineous marriages.
7. BROKEN FAMILY
• A broken family is one where the parents have separated, or where death
has occurred of one or both the parents.
• Dr. John Bowlby brought out clearly the concept of "mental deprivation"
as one of the most dangerous pathogenic factors in child development .
• Separation of the child from its father (paternal separation) and
separation of the child from both of its parents (dual-parental separation)
are important factors in child development.
• Children who are victims of broken families early in their childhood have
been found sometimes to display in later years psychopathic behaviour,
immature personality and even retardation of growth, speech and
intellect.
8. PROBLEM FAMILIES
• Problem families are those which lag behind the rest of the
community.
• In these families, the standards of life are generally far below the
accepted minimum and parents are unable to meet the physical and
emotional needs of their children.
• The home life is utterly unsatisfactory.
 8. PROBLEM FAMILIES
• The underlying factors in most problem families are :
• personality and of relationship,
• backwardness,
• poverty,
• illness,
• mental and emotional instability,
• character defects and marital disharmony.
• These families are recognized as problems in social pathology
8. PROBLEM FAMILIES
• The health visitor, the health inspector, the midwife, the social worker,
the medical officer of health, all can render useful service in
rehabilitating such families in a community.
• Thanks   