Working with men: an analysis of health visiting practice in families with young children

The purpose of this paper is to explore health visitors' work with men as uncovered in their detailed descriptions of actual cases. The study used the grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis. Forty-five health visitors were interviewed using the conversational interview and 111 cases of their work with young families discussed. Findings indicate that health visitors' work with men was influenced by both their conceptualization of men within family-focused health visiting practice and contextual factors in the actual client-health visitor situation which enhanced or restricted interventions with men. Four approaches to working with men were identified and classified as: (1) high conceptualization and high intervention, (ii) high conceptualization and low intervention, (iii) low conceptualization and high intervention, and (iv) low conceptualization and low intervention. This paper contributes to our understanding of the health visitor's role in family health promotion.