Violência doméstica e enfermagem: da percep？？o do fen？meno à realidade cotidiana

violence is derived from conflicts of authority, power struggles, the will to dominate, the desire to destroy others and their assets. it is important to consider the impact that cases of violence have on health services. the goal was to identify the basic care nurses' perception of the phenomenon of domestic violence and their relation with the families. thanks to a prospective, descriptive and exploratory study, made with a qualitative approach and based upon the "práxica" theory of intervention of collective health nursing. three analytical categories were proposed: the concept of family, the work process of the basic attention nurses and gender. seven in-depth interviews were made to the nurses of the basic care units in the metropolitan region of sao paulo. the fiorin discourse analysis technique was used, which resulted in four empirical categories: reflection about families and the health-disease process; the family and its current concepts; the nurse's work with the families that are victims of violence and the position taken when faced to cases of violence. it was concluded that the nurses recognize the difficulties and simplicities in the attention of families that were victims of violence. they expressed their impotence to overcome the difficulties and they sense a lack of preparation and training courses related to this matter, which in turn makes professional performance rather difficult. it was also suggested that professional training through permanent education is the way to reorganize the work processes, focusing on the needs of the families that were victims of violence.