INFLUENCES OF STRUCTURAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS ON FAMILY FUNCTIONING

Objective: To assess the influence of structural and developmental factors on family functioning.Material and Method: Analytical, cross-sectional study with 200 individuals from 100 Brazilian families.Data were collected with the instrument The Assessment of Strategies in Family-Effectiveness (ASF-E/Brasil); a form to characterize the participants, to identify the roles, the development cycle and a field diary to describe family arrangements.For analysis, data were evaluated for simple frequency, means and Spearman correlation coefficient (ρ) (p <0.05).Results: The effectiveness in family functioning was high in 82.0%families.The arrangement of nuclear families was > 50.0% and the predominant role was that of mother.More than 75.0%families were in more than one development cycle, with a predominance of the phase of "launching" their children.The cycle with the best mean value of effectiveness in family functioning was "Family with preschool children (older child between 30 months and 6 years old)".There was a significant correlation between all the arrangements and there was no correlation between roles and development cycles with the effectiveness of family functioning.Conclusions: The structural, developmental and functional assessment of the family showed the influence of the arrangements on family functioning.