A Família em Cuidados de Saúde Primários: caracterização das atitudes dos enfermeiros.

National and international guidelines on show that nursing practices are focused on families. We have conducted a quantitative study, with the objective of characterizing the attitudes of nurses working in primary health care in regional health centers, on the importance of involving the family in nursing care. We studied a sample of 871 nurses at health centers in the central region of Portugal, using the Portuguese version of the Families Importance in Nursing Care – Nurses’ Attitudes scale (FINC-NA)( Benzei et al., 2008), validated by Oliveira et al. (2009; 2011). The results showed high average scores on the following dimensions: Family: use of nursing care (76.48) and Family: partner in the dialogue and coping resources (73.33), and low scores on Family: burden (21.60). These results highlight that nurses have supportive attitudes towards families, and these are related to training, length of professional experience, the unit where they work, and the method of organization of care. We conclude that nurses in regional health centers have supportive attitudes towards families, which is an important criterion for the quality of care they provide in the context of primary health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]