The Family in Europe: Structure, Intergenerational Solidarity, and New Challenges to Family Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Montoro-Gurich ◽  
Cristina Garcia-Vivar

Understanding the family experience of health and illness within the family’s social and cultural context helps health professionals understand a family’s stories. The purpose of this article is to present salient characteristics of the Western European family to extend understanding about family structure and values in relation to caring and intergenerational solidarity. The goal is to provide nurses and other health professionals with culturally competent knowledge that can inform practice with families. Evidence suggests that a family model, characterized by strong-family type societies consisting of coresidence, solidarity, and intergenerational relationships, stalwartly continues in Mediterranean countries. However, due to the recent economic crisis in Spain and other European countries, there is a trend toward the withdrawal of state responsibility toward the family, and an increasing weight on families’ responsibility, particularly for women, toward the care of their old and chronically ill relative. Therefore, there is a need to make health and social systems more effective, sustainable, and focused on family care.

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiana Araújo Guiller Ferreira ◽  
Flávia Simphronio Balbino ◽  
Maria Magda Ferreira Gomes Balieiro ◽  
Myriam Aparecida Mandetta

ABSTRACT Objective: to develop and validate instruments to identify health professionals’ beliefs related to the presence of the child’s family in invasive procedures and in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Method: study based on Psychometrics to conduct the theoretical, empirical and analytical stages, developed in a neonatal unit of a university hospital. The two instruments were constructed based on the literature and applied to 96 health professionals. Results: the Cronbach’s Alpha of the instrument related to the professionals’ beliefson invasive procedures was 0.863 and the instrument on cardiopulmonary resuscitation was 0.882. In both instruments, the tests performed indicated a correlation between the items. From the factorial analysis, four factors were generated: (1) benefits of the presence of the family; (2) impairment for professional practice; (3) strategies for the inclusion of the family; and (4) limitation of learning and decision making by the professional. Conclusion: the instruments analyzed obtained a good internal consistency and are indicators of the professionals’ beliefs with the potential to evaluate the quality of family care in this context.


Author(s):  
Merril Silverstein

This chapter reviews the history and evolution of the intergenerational solidarity paradigm, a model for representing and understanding interpersonal relationships between adult generations in the family. Solidarity has resonance with the dualisms found in positive psychology in its representation of both negative and positive polarities in intergenerational relationships, as well as the co-occurrence of cohesion and friction in these relationships. Specifically, the following underlying dualities of solidarity are discussed: (1) latent solidarity and manifest solidarity, (2) emotional closeness in relation to conflict and the concept of ambivalence, and (3) within-family differentiation in solidarity based on favoritism and generational position. Research questions for the future are posed at the conclusion.


2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
EUGENIA SCABINI ◽  
ELENA MARTA

This article explores the literature on intergenerational relationships within psychological and sociological disciplines. After a brief description of the different meanings of the term ‘generation’, two theoretical perspectives are discussed: Mannheim's theory of generations and Bengston and colleagues' theory of intergenerational solidarity. Particular attention is given to the process of intergenerational transmission. This is followed by a rereading of the concept of generation in light of the relational–intergenerational perspective. This perspective attempts to consider together family and social generations, taken to be interdependent. The application of this perspective to the transition to adulthood is crucial to an understanding of intergenerational dynamics, whether in the family or in the community. It concludes with reflections on the meaning of the intergenerational transmission as seen from the relational-intergenerational perspective and recent research findings.


Author(s):  
Piotr Krakowiak ◽  
Katarzyna Wasilewska-Ostrowska

Loneliness experienced by family caregivers of the chronically ill in their homes is described starting with different aspects of solitude in social sciences. Family care as part of informal care should cooperate with formal careers from health and social systems. Welfare institutions and home care in Poland are described in front of growing challenges of ageing societies in Europe. Good practices and practical recommendations for local communities, including better coordination of care, as well as support for family caregivers at risk of loneliness and other difficulties are offered as a conclusion of this report.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Albert ◽  
Dieter Ferring ◽  
Tom Michels

According to the intergenerational solidarity model, family members who share similar values about family obligations should have a closer relationship and support each other more than families with a lower value consensus. The present study first describes similarities and differences between two family generations (mothers and daughters) with respect to their adherence to family values and, second, examines patterns of relations between intergenerational consensus on family values, affectual solidarity, and functional solidarity in a sample of 51 mother-daughter dyads comprising N = 102 participants from Luxembourgish and Portuguese immigrant families living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Results showed a small generation gap in values of hierarchical gender roles, but an acculturation gap was found in Portuguese mother-daughter dyads regarding obligations toward the family. A higher mother-daughter value consensus was related to higher affectual solidarity of daughters toward their mothers but not vice versa. Whereas affection and value consensus both predicted support provided by daughters to their mothers, affection mediated the relationship between consensual solidarity and received maternal support. With regard to mothers, only affection predicted provided support for daughters, whereas mothers’ perception of received support from their daughters was predicted by value consensus and, in the case of Luxembourgish mothers, by affection toward daughters.


2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katariina Salmela-Aro ◽  
Ingrid Schoon

A series of six papers on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” has now been published in the European Psychologist throughout 2008 and 2009. The papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of productive youth development by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The papers address different aspects of an integrative framework for the study of reciprocal multiple person-environment interactions shaping the pathways to adulthood in the contexts of the family, the school, and social relationships with peers and significant others. Interactions between these key players are shaped by their embeddedness in varied neighborhoods and communities, institutional regulations, and social policies, which in turn are influenced by the wider sociohistorical and cultural context. Young people are active agents, and their development is shaped through reciprocal interactions with these contexts; thus, the developing individual both influences and is influenced by those contexts. Relationship quality and engagement in interactions appears to be a fruitful avenue for a better understanding of how young people adjust to and tackle development to productive adulthood.


1993 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-412
Author(s):  
James M. O'Neil
Keyword(s):  

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  

In Slovenia, the role of general practitioners in counselling physical activity for prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is well recognized. The role of general practitioners in advising healthy lifestyle for individuals who are at risk of developing CVD is formally defined in the National Program for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, which has been running since 2001. Part of the program is counselling on healthy lifestyle including physical activity, performed in all health centres across the country. First a screening and medical examination is performed. In case of higher risk for CVD (>20%) the physician should give advice on the particular risk factor and direct patients to health-education centres, where they can participate in healthy lifestyle workshops lead by health professionals. Physicians and other health professionals who are involved in the implementation of prevention activities within the program need knowledge and skills that are crucial for successful counselling on healthy lifestyle. The educational program “basic education in health promotion and prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases in primary health care/family medicine” consists of two parts. The first part of the training is open to all health professionals working within the program. The second part is intended for health professionals working in health-education workshops. In the last few years a new family practice model has been introduced and disseminated. Some duties of the family physician, including health promotion and counselling, are being transferred to graduate nurses who become part of the family practice team. This new division of work undoubtedly brings many advantages, both in terms of the work organization, and of high-quality patient care. Nevertheless preventive action cannot be fully passed on to graduate nurses. Careful planning and education are needed to ensure a comprehensive approach in healthy life style counselling.


The present paper is an attempt to analyze the socio-economic profile of the labour households in rural Punjab. The study revealed that majority of rural labour households belonged to the scheduled caste category. As far as the distribution of sampled rural labour households according to the family type was concerned, it was found that 46.42 percent of the total rural labour households had nuclear families, while the remaining 53.58 percent have joint families. Majority of the rural labourers were living in semi-pucca houses. Further, if we look at the housing condition, 54.72 percent of rural labourers owned the houses of average condition, 40.19 percent owned good condition households and 5.09percent owned dilapidated houses. The analysis further showed that as many as 20.35percentof the sampled labour population was illiterate. A few persons from sampled labour households educated above matric. Although large majority of the sampled labour population were from the working-age group yet the ratio of dependents was high among rural labour households. This was due to lower employment opportunities in rural areas.


2019 ◽  
pp. 67-72
Author(s):  
Anna Kimerling

The article is devoted to the features of the wartime culture. The source was a unique collection of letters from the fronts of World War II, written by political instructor Arkady Georgievich Endaltsev. The war led to the breakdown of familiar cultural models. It is important to understand how, adaptation to new standards occurred on an individual level. For A. Endaltsev, family care practices were a way to bridge cultural gaps. They are reflected in the letters. There, framed by ideologically verified stamps, one can find financial assistance to the family, control over the education of the daughter, the need for a continuous flow of information about the life of the wife and children.


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