Meanings of Family constructed with health professionals in the Family Health Strategy

Abstract

The participation of the families in health care has been emphasized in the construction of policies in Brazil. In this study, we aim to understand meanings constructed with health professionals about families and the implications of these meanings for the production of health care practices in the Family Health Strategy. We conducted a qualitative study, whose corpus was composed by the transcription of 16 meetings of "Family discussion groups", helded as part of the routine of two Family Health Program´s teams. The analysis of the transcriptions was based on the theoretical perspective of the discursive practices and production of meanings in everyday life. As a result, four meanings were constructed: Family as people who live together; as responsible for the care; as a problem; and as a network of relationships. We conclude that there are efforts of professionals to consider the family in their practice, however, actions centered on the individual, and still not guided by the analysis of the context and living conditions, are more common in their discursive practices.