[Practical usefulness of genogram in the handicapped patient care].

OBJECTIVE

To know the practical use of genogram in the handicapped patient care, describing their characteristics and those of their families and to obtain the prevalence of bad care immobilized patients belonging to the health centre.

DESIGN

Descriptive observational.

SETTING

Urban health centre.

PARTICIPANTS

People of both sexes registered at the health centre, immobilized in their houses, with a disability score of three or more in the physical disability scale of the Red Cross.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS

The most important features of our immobilized people, obtained from the genogram, are: women (63.5%), with mean age of 78.8 +/- 13.2 years old (CI, 76.5-81.17), with disability score of 3 (46.8%), immersed in a nuclear family (34.9%), in phase VI of dissolution of the vital cycle (45.2%), with very closed relations (45.2%), with arthrosis (23.8%) as the most frequent immobilized cause, and with one unique home career only (72%). The prevalence of bad care immobilized patients was 25.4%.

CONCLUSIONS

The genogram is an excellent tool for describing immobilized people and their family nucleus, allowing the definition of an immobilized profile. If the patient is bad cared, he will need an special consideration. The immobilized score and the family relations ship may complicate their care, conditioning a worse prognosis. We wish to emphasize the importance of carrying out the genogram in the initial moment of the immobilization, because it establishes a dialogue route between the families and the sanitary professionals to improve the attention of these patients.