Background:

the family is the privileged context of support for the life and health of individuals. The systemic approach to the family has gained relevance. The Nursing Ontology proposes a structure where concepts of the discipline and their relationships are specified, describing a formal representation of nursing knowledge.

Objectives:

representing nursing knowledge about the family as a care client, in three classes of information items: data, diagnoses and interventions.

Methodology:

inferential qualitative study, content analysis was performed to customization in the Portuguese Nursing Practice Support System - SAPE®, literature review and focus group.

Results:

In the national customization, there was little visibility of the family as a care unit, as well as lack of representation of the conceptual models that support disciplinary knowledge. In Nursing Ontology, the family process encompasses: organization of the functioning of the house and residential building; family preparation to integrate a dependent family member in self-care; family preparation for the arrival of the newborn and family planning. For each domain, three classes of nursing information were specified that represent the elements of the decision-making process.

Conclusion:

this study is presented as a contribution to the formalization of nursing knowledge in Family Process domain.