[The genogram in the evaluation of natural family vital cycle and its dislocations]. / El genograma en la evaluación del ciclo vital familiar natural y de sus dislocaciones.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate whether the reading of the genogram allows the stages of the family vital cycle (FVC) and the map of relationships to be identified; and to study how it can be used to find the FVC and its dislocations, and family relationships. DESIGN: Descriptive crossover study. SETTING: Primary Care. Health Centres at Almanjayar and Cartuja (Granada). Patients and other participants. 499 genograms performed and analysed by Primary Care doctors. INTERVENTIONS: Reading of the genograms by two doctors who had not participated in taking them, to establish whether the FVC stages and the map of relationships could be identified, and the cycle and its dislocations classified. RESULTS: The reading of the genogram enabled the stages of the FVC to be identified in 96% of cases. 66% of the genograms had the map of relationships correctly drawn. We found that 30% of families were at the fourth stage, 22% in II-B and 19% in II-A. 43% of the genograms contributed data on family relationships. Dislocations in the FVC were evident in 16.6%. CONCLUSIONS: When the genogram is well-constructed, we consider it a good tool for classifying families into the appropriate stage of the FVC, evaluating the role of family interactions throughout the cycle and discovering disruptions in the FVC.

[The use of role-playing with actors and video in teaching clinical interviews to medical students]. / El rol-play con actores y el vídeo en la enseñanza de la entrevista clínica a estudiantes de medicina.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the use of the technique of role-play, using actors and recorded on video, in teaching clinical interviews to medical students; and the latters' evaluation of the methodology used. DESIGN: Prospective and observational controlled study. SITE. The Faculty of Medicine in Granada. PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS: The study was carried out with a group of 32 students doing the last year of Medicine. MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Two actors, ten students as interviewers and two teachers were involved. The programme consisted of: a theoretical setting-out of the contents of the clinical interview; a description of the group analysis method; filming simulated interviews on video; group analysis of the material filmed; and evaluation by means of a questionnaire. The choice of interviews gave rise to no problems. The actors assumed with ease the roles they had to play. In the group work, students actively participated and made constructive contributions all the time. In the assessment the items referring to Interest, Teaching Method and Relevance and Originality were high (4.49 out of 5 points). Only that referring to documentation obtained a lower score (3.87 out of 5). CONCLUSIONS: Role-play technique, using actors and video, are excellent educational methods for teaching the clinical interview in undergraduate training.

[Validation of a functional social support scale for use in the family doctor's office]. / Validación de una escala de apoyo social funcional para su uso en la consulta del médico de familia.

OBJECTIVE: The present work seeks to validate the Duke-UNC questionnaire as modified by Broadhead, which is used to measure social support in its qualitative dimension. DESIGN: It is a transversal, prospective and observational study. LOCATION: The study has been done at the primary care level, corresponding to the basic health area of Cartuja (Granada). PATIENTS: The questionnaire was administered to 139 patients seen in the offices of the Cartuja Health Centre. 25 of them were male and 114 female, of an age ranging from 18 to 84. The subjects were selected on a systematic base of three by three with a random starting-point from among people over 18 years old visiting the office. INTERVENTIONS: To check the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, Pearson's, Edward's and Cronbach's alpha techniques were used. The factorial analysis was verified by the varimax rotation method. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We have observed that the questionnaire correctly measures qualitative social support, it being appreciated that the correlation coefficients are high, as is the internal consistency of the scale. After the factorial analysis we also confirmed the existence of two components: Factor 1 which measures the confidential social support and Factor 2 which measures the affective social support. CONCLUSIONS: The Duke-UNC questionnaire reduced to 11 items is a fast and simple instrument for detecting the level of social support in its affective and confidential dimensions. Its use will allow us to discover situations of high social risk; permitting us in these cases to carry out the relevant support interventions.