The meaning of the family: lived experiences of Turkish women immigrants in Germany.

The basic premise underpinning this research is that the family plays a key role in understanding and providing adequate nursing care for an ill member. To understand the family, the view on what members are as a family and what meanings are attributed to their various roles is of central importance for nurses. Since Turkish Muslim families who live as migrants in Germany differ considerably in their own understanding of themselves in their German environment, qualitative research, based on Spradley's developmental research sequence method, was conducted with nine Turkish women in order to learn about the meaning of family for them.