Family Composition And Health Management

The family and their home form the unit that everyone including health advisores deals with most. Disease can occur in several members of a family because they care a group of people sharing the same environment and in contact with each other–they drink the same water, eat the same food, breathe the same germs, and are bitten by the same insects. Another reason for several members of a family getting the same diseases is that they are very similar in body inheritance–all the children may develop certain diseases from their parents and this is why we see problems such as sickle-bell anaemia occuring in several babies in one family. It is in the family that the child recieves his first form of training and education, and develops his habits. He would not only learn a language and how to behave towards other people, but also learns which foods to like and eat, how to clean his body and how to behave in illness. Some diseases in a family are thus the result of common and shared habits.

Within the home people come into very close contact, so not only could there be transmission of an infectious disease, but also of people's moods, fears, joys and anger. The personal interaction between family members is something the health visitor should observe carefully. Good mental and social health is shown by harmonious interaction people and also by individual's ability to perform his particular role in society or in the family. A mother should therefore enjoy being a mother and should be able to do this job well–similarly in her role as a wife she should love her husband and be able to be a good wife. A woman who is sterile for physical health reasons is then unable to be a mother or a perfect wife and is therefore at risk of developing emotional and social problems.

The family has many functions, the most important being childbearing, child-rearing, providing the satisfaction of the home, and in rural areas the production of food which is often done with the help of, to certain degrees, all the older children and adults.