Lifespan Changes and Family Flashcards
What is a family?
- married or cohabiting adults, couple or single adult
- with or without (unmarried) children
- including childless couples or lone parent together with never married children
- grandparents with grandchildren without parents
- a group of individuals related to one another by blood ties, marriage, or adoption, who form an economic unit, the adult members of which are responsible for the upbringing of children
Give examples of some family types
- lone parent
- nuclear traditional
- nuclear adopted
- nuclear same sex
- extended
- reconstituted/blended/patchwork
- ?postmodern family?
What is a household?
- A group of people who share living arrangements - householders will often relax together, eat together and share household chores
- Household is not the same of family - a single family may form a household, but a single family may also extend beyond a single household
- a single household may contain multiple families
Family = kinship and emotional/biological relations
Household = spatial and temporal relations - Householders and families may interact differently, and should not be conflated. Should not be assumed the householders are family, and vice versa
How has family structure changed over the years?
- increase in lone parent and cohabiting families
- women are having children later
- overall divorce rates decreasing, increasing in >60’s
- no. of people living alone increased
- fewer household have children/children living in them
What are the implications of changing family structure for healthcare?
new realities
later childbirth
ageing population
shrinking informal care, increasing formal care
vulnerable people with support outside NHS
What are the 4 functions of a family?
- facilitates the procreation of children
- provides social control and socialisation of children
- dictates the social placement of children and adults
- physically looks after its members
What is the family’s role in health?
- transmission of health risks (genetics)
- healthy/unhealthy lifestyle
- attitudes to health and illness, healthcare professionals, healthcare seeking behaviour
- body image
- diagnosis of symptoms
- management of symptoms
- effect of illness on family functioning
- provision of healthcare
Tansella identifies three ways in which the family normally comes to the doctor’s attention. What are these?
- The family fais in its patients care function
- A family member has a physical or psychological breakdown
- There is non-compliance and friction between patient, family and doctor that interfere with case management
Describe McGoldrick and Carter’s model of the family lifecycle (1982)
Life Cycle Stage/Developmental Tasks
- Unattached adult = parent/offspring separation
- Newly married couple = commitment to new family system
- Family with young children = accepting a new generation
- Family with adolescents = increasing flexibility of family boundaries to accommodate developing children’s independence
- Launching children and moving on = accepting the exiting of family members
- Family in later life = accepting shifting generational roles
Describe Litman, 1974 Family Reactions to Illness
Sudden illness –> family –> daily pattern of family life disturbed –> families tend to pull together and become more cohesive and integrated (centripetal effect)
–> illness becomes chronic
or
–> ill person recovers –> family return to normal
Describe Litman, 1974 Family Reactions to Illness
- What are the options when an illness becomes chronic
Family remains tightly bound together
Family life organised around illness
Illness ignored as far as possible
Family cuts down its involvement with other people in the community to avoid confrontation with the effect of handicap
Family pulls apart
One partner can’t stand the strain –> martial disruption –> divorce
Over attention devoted to ill person –> rest of family e..g brothers, sister negalected –> social deviance
Exclude ill person from family (e.g. institutionalise) –> family returns to normal
-
Centripetal family
- external world perceived as a threat, capable of causing disruption
- members seek gratification from within the family
- harmony is seen as a glue and must be maintained, so negative and hostile feeling are denied or hidden
Centrifutal family
- members seek gratification outside of the family
- marked distance between members, and little communication
- members are comfortable iwht negative and hostile feeling, and uncomfortable with warmth or caring
How may centripetal families impact healthcare?
- may disrupt medical advice, preferring to deal ‘in house’
- centripetal focus may be amplified by illness
- autonomy at risk
- illness offers an excuse
How may centrifugal families impact healthcare?
- may not offer patient the support they need
- lack of understanding by family members
- resentment towards the ill family member
What are the common effects on the health of carers?
- stress/nervous tension
- depression/anxiety
- back injury
- high blood pressure
