Role of Family in health and

illness
 Introduction
• The family is a group of biologically related
individuals. It is a pretty universal picture in
all societies. Family performs many functions.
There are certain functions which are relevant
to health and health behaviour, and are
important from the medical-sociology point of
view.
Role of Family in health and illness
• Child rearing
• Socialization
• Personality formation
• Care of dependent adults
• Stabilizing the adult personality
• Family susceptibility to disease
• Broken family
• Problem families
 1.CHILD REARING
• Physical care of the dependent young in order that they
may survive up to adulthood and perpetuate the family.
• Differs enormously from society to society.
• Capital resources, level of knowledge, state of technology
and state of values.
• Socially determined by the tradition.
• Traditions act as obstacles.
• Physical care of the dependent young.
• Patterns of child care : feeding ,nutrition, hygiene, sleep,
clothing.
 2. Socialization
• The second responsibility of the family is to
socialize the ''stream of new born barbarians.
• " It refers to the process whereby individuals
develop qualities essential for functioning
effectively in the society in which they live.
• By socialization is meant teaching the young the
values of society and transmitting information,
culture,beliefs, general codes of conduct, by
example and precept, in order to make them fit for
membership in the wider society of which the
family is a part.
 3. PERSONALITY FORMATION
• It is an area in which sociology comes closest to
psychology.
• The capacity of an individual to withstand stress and strain
and the way in which he interacts with other people is to a
large extent determined by his 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 family acts as a "placenta" excluding various
influences. modifying others that pass through it and
contributes some of its own 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

(b)Care of women during pregnancy and
child birth
(c)Care of the aged and handicapped
 A ) Care of the sick and injured
• In all forms of society adults may become dependent either
through injury. illness because of basic biological limitation
for performing function normally expected by adults
• the family is charged with the responsibility of care of such
individuals.
• The family expected to provide the front-line care
particularly mother.
• Much depends upon her understanding illness and the extent
she believes herself capable of providing nursing care.
• Studies have shown that the family does more nursing than
the hospital, even in highly developed countries
b) Care of women during pregnancy and
child birth

• From the public health point of view, 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 and
child-bearing may have an important bearing
on the infant deaths, maternal morbidity and
morbidity premature and stillbirths.
C. Care of the aged and handicapped
• An area of increasing importance. particularly in
the western societies is the care of the aged and
infirm.
• 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.
• In India the 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,death
tension, emotional upsets, worry, anxiety, economic
insecurity and the like.
• In such situations, the family provides and
opportunity, both for adults and children, for release
the tension so that the individual can attain mental
equilibrium and strive to maintain a stable
relationship with other people.
• 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.
• Certain chronic illnesses such as peptic ulcer ,
high blood pressure, rheumatism, skin diseases are
accepted as stress diseases" having a prominent
emotional element in their development.
• Thus the family has an important function in the
stabilization of the personality of both adults and
children and in meeting their emotional needs.
 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,
chicken-pox, dysentery,diarrhoea and enteric
fever.
• These diseases are known to spread rapidly in
families because of the common environment
which the family members share.
• It is generally agreed that the incidence of
congenital malformation is higher among off
springs 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
• 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).
• Children from these families may drift away to prostitution,
crime and vagrancy.
 8. PROBLEM FAMILIES
• . 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.
• The underlying factors in most problem families
are usually those of 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 .
• Children who are reared in such an environment
are victims of prostitution, crime and vagrancy.
• Problem families may be found in all social
classes but are more common in the lower social
classes.
• 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.
 Conclusion
• The family therefore plays an important part both in
health and disease in the prevention and treatment of
individual illness in the care of children and
dependent adults, and in the stabilization of the
personality of both adults and children. In most
societies the family is the fulcrum of health services .
• Medical schools are developing teaching
programmes in family medicine, because, as Florence
Nightingale had said : ''the secret of national health
lies in the homes of the people".