Staff Members’ View of the Daily Life of Family Who Regularly Accompany Children Patients at Family House

Abstract

 The purpose of this research is to grasp the daily life conditions of families who use the Family House (FH). Data was collected through focus group interviews with FH staff members and the contents were analyzed qualitatively. The results extracted 86 subjects describing those family members, which were divided into 6 categories: “family behavior,” “situations that the family is in,” “psychological condition of the family,” “preferences for using the FH,” “utilizing FH functions” and “recognition and understanding of FH”, as well as 20 subcategories. They are described that the families suddenly found themselves in a strange place and continually visited the patient despite having serious issues. On the other hand, families could feel that daily life was more normal and received peer support at the FH. From looking at these conditions, it is suggested that FH encourages family members to maintain a more ordinary daily life, which decreases their psychological burden.