Health: A Duty of the State of a Family Matter? Analysis of an Experience of Families from a Popular Neighborhood regarding the Health System

In what ways does an urban family use the resources it has to cope with circumstances related to the health-illness process? Literature suggests that an individual submitted to adverse conditions can use various alternatives to overcome hazards to his/her health. If s/he is not competent to face the problem himself/herself, s/he adopts alternatives involving a lay network of social support. If those alternatives fail, s/he turns to prescriptions of competent professionals. The study focuses on descriptions of ways to cope with events linked with health & illness in daily life, rebuilding the experience of the family in its relationship to the health system. The results suggest: a) the presence of standard behaviors & ideas, shaped by characteristics of the illness situation., that are coordinated with the use of the professional health system; b) the adoption of parallel therapeutic systems, with a continuous evaluation of the given results, the formal system being one of the last chosen resources, except when the family faces accidents or chronic problems; c) the adequacy of medical prescriptions to the reality of family life; d) a re-signification of suffering that lessens the anguish & favors the action; e) the presence of conflicts in the family-health system interface, involving various resources & systems of beliefs & practices. References. Adapted from the source document.