RESUMO
The maintenance of good health levels is strongly related to personal, cognitive and social skills that compose the concept of health literacy (HL) (Soellner, Lenartz & Rudinger, 2017). Since low HL levels are associated with vulnerable groups (Pedro, Amaral & Escoval, 2016), we intend to analyze the social, economic and social characteristics of a group of unipersonal families with an elder person as well as to identify needs in nursing care. An exploratory and descriptive study was conducted in unipersonal families with members over 65 years of age, users of primary care. The sample consisted of clients that had the characteristics of the population who used a health unit in the northern part of Portugal requesting a nursing consultation, between March and April 2017. The data collection was performed based on the structural dimension of the MDAIF (Figueiredo, 2012). Data analysis was done through descriptive sta-tistics. In the sample composed of 15 families, 80% pertained to the lower middle class. All individuals suffer of one or more chronic diseases. The most common nursing interventions were directed to the residential building, safety precaution and water supply. The assessment of the structural dimension of unipersonal households is an essential resource in identifying potentialities or vulnerabilities, in order to guide nursing interventions to improve patients' levels of HL, or proactively preventing complications arising from their limitations
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