INTRODUCTION

A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living. -Charles R. Swindoll: brainyquote.com

Health is a right of every human being. Healthy people is a prerequisite to national development. The DOH uses the life span approach to design programs and assist in the delivery of health services to specific age groups. It views health care of individuals within the context of the family. The term family is defined as the basic unit of the community. All members of the family are empowered to maintain their health status. They must be free from disease or infirmity with no disabilities. In public health perspective, the health of the family is considered as a whole and not individually. (Cuevas, Public Health Nursing in the Philippines, 2007). A family refers to two or more individuals joined or related by ties of blood, marriage or adoption and who constitute a single household, interact with each other in their respective familial roles and who create and maintain a common culture. As a kinship unit, a family consists of at least one man living with a woman in a legally or socially recognized and more or less permanent sexual relationship, with particular rights and obligations, together with or without their offspring. (Salvacion Bailon-Reyes, Community Health Nursing The Basics of Practice, 2006) The community is a group of people sharing geographic boundaries and/or values and interests. (Maglaya, 2004) No two communities are alike. A nurse exposed in the community learns how to interact and adapt to different kinds of people. The family is considered as the basic unit of care in the community health nursing. It is a part of a larger system encompassing communities and cultures. It is in the family where a member develops his health values, beliefs and practices. The family is a major influence in the health behaviors of an individual. With this, it is important that families in a community are aware of the things and practices pertaining to their health. It is apt to say that community health nursing has a big role in the nursing education. It is in the community where the student nurse learns nursing apart from the hospital setting as she was exposed to different level of orientation. It is in the community where the saying nursing is an art can be applied as a student nurse tries to give quality service using the available resources in the health center.

Conducting a family case study is a means by which student nurses reach and feel the community through its basic structure the family. It is a tool in determining the health status of a family through assessment and critical inspection. Through this, health related problems are identified, thus giving the student nurses a hint on where to act and how to intervene. It is also a means towards improving the health of the community people, making them more productive. To come up with a family case study gives a sense of fulfillment to student nurses as they were given the opportunity to share their skills, knowledge and time to alleviate and uplift the living condition of a family. The family that was chosen by the student nurses is a picture of the majority of the family here in our country: a family living in a poor environmental condition without enough resources and lacks knowledge on vital health information and experiences other socio-economic related problems. Though tiring as it is, reaching out to this family and mingling with them makes the student nurses feel the sense of fulfillment as they share their knowledge, skill and time to aid in uplifting the condition of the family.