This article describes the subjective health views of young Finnish families with children. The data were collected in unstructured focused interviews with 19 families, most of whom were interviewed twice. Set within a phenomenological-hermeneutic framework, the study applies a qualitative method in order to uncover the meanings attached by the families to different facets of their everyday life. Health is an integral part of the everyday life of families with children, comprising various dimensions of experienced well-being and unwell-being, security and different life-habits. Social networks are crucial to family health: they can either strengthen or undermine experienced health. Professionals working with families in the health care system need to have at least a basic knowledge of the different dimensions of family health: this helps to identify and understand the individual ways in which families work to promote their health and well-being. This knowledge of family health is also important for research purposes. Health care professionals also need to know more about how families cope with their everyday problems and about how client families can be supported. More research is needed on the concepts of family health and on how those concepts are applied to practice in different health care sectors and in education.
The results suggest that for purposes of supporting family well-being on the family's own terms, it is important to have a clear understanding of the everyday life of families in different situations and understand the meanings that grow out of their everyday life. This information helps nurses to take into account the social aspect of family health and understand low-income mothers' point of health, in different health situations in nursing practice where they meet one another.
This article describes the everyday experiences of health and well-being among Finnish low-income fathers. The aim of study is to understand the health experiences of low-income fathers and the factors influencing the health experience and to develop nursing care in order to provide support for them. The approach is phenomenological and method is based on hermeneutical and descriptive phenomenology. The informants in this study were seven low-income Finnish fathers with children under 16 years old. Well-being of the fathers appeared as personal, realistic and bound to everyday life: income sufficient for meeting basic needs, everyday health, the pleasure and priviledge of life and the meaningfulness of the relationships in family and in community. Fathers used individual methods for maintaining the experience of well-being and they experienced the support from official sources as positive or negative. The findings of this study suggest that well-being of low-income fathers living under threat of marginalisation will be supported by care providers taking into account individual, social and economic factors, and that this support will have to be gender-sensitive, realistic and based on their everyday life.
Aims
The aim was to describe the experiences of nurses in broaching the issue of overweight and obesity at maternity and child health clinics.
Background
The mother's obesity and excessive weight gain during pregnancy and rapid weight gain in early childhood increase the risk of obesity of the newborn baby both in childhood and throughout life. Attention must be paid to the prevention of weight gain in families already during pregnancy and before school age.
Methods
Informants were nurses working at maternity and child health clinics (N = 28). The qualitative data were collected by a focus group interview in spring 2016 and analysed using inductive content analysis.
Findings
The nurses interviewed considered it their duty to broach the issue and felt that they have sufficient courage to bring up overweight. They sometimes found it frustrating to talk about overweight and obesity, because families do not commit themselves to making lifestyle changes, and changes happen slowly. Nurses found the lasting relationship with families helpful for bringing up overweight.
Conclusion
Nurses need more broaching skills, more training, supervising and tools for bringing up overweight and obesity with client families. The continuity of care in primary health care supports bringing up overweight.
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