| Description |
Intellectual class families come from the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the USA as students and visiting scholars. However, there is a dearth of knowledge and empirical data about these families' concepts of health promotion and disease prevention and health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to generate information about how intellectual class PRC families manage health promotion and disease prevention on a daily basis. Ethnography was used to generate data to describe families' health behaviors. Interviewing and participant observation techniques were used to generate data for the study from 29 families. Content analysis was used to develop categories and themes in the data. The results of the study describe family health definitions, family values, past and present socialization to health, family health behaviors, family roles in health, and family interactions about health. Several themes were identified in the data that described the PRC intellectual class family health culture: relationships in health, happy spirit, nutrition, exercise, family, work/study, and security. Data from this study provide nurses with baseline data about PRC intellectual class family health behaviors and implications for family nursing theory development. |
