Family Health Assessment
Grand Canyon University: NRS-429
November 24, 2013
Family Health Assessment
As nurses it is essential to use appropriate tools to assess individuals, families, and communities. Throughout this paper the writer used The Gordon’s 11 Functional Health Patterns as a guide to assess a family. This family included a mother, a father, one son, four daughters, and two grandsons. The writer developed two to three open minded, family focused questions for each of the 11 functional health patterns. In this paper the writer summarizes the findings of each functional health patterns of the family, and identifies three wellness nursing diagnoses based on the family assessment.
The family being
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It is important to for the family to have a well balanced diet. According to the My Plate food guide half of a meal plate should be fruits and vegetables with the vegetable portion slightly larger, and the other half grains and protein with the grain potion slightly bigger than the protein portion, there also needs to be a side of dairy (Kids Health, 2013).
The next wellness nursing diagnosis appropriate for this family would be readiness for enhanced activity–exercise pattern. According to the family assessment, this family does not exercise daily. It is recommended that children and adolescents should do 1 hour or more of physical activity daily (Kids Health, 2013). It is highly important for this family to work on increasing their activity to prevent complications in the future, such as heart disease, and obesity. For the two daughters that have asthma, they should increase their exercise slowly, and should use their prescribed inhalers before activity. It is essential that this particular family work on their nutrition and exercise patterns to become a healthy family. This family needs to work on their nutrition and exercise as well as their coping mechanisms.
Lastly, another nursing diagnosis for this family would be readiness for enhanced family coping due to their father’s current illness. This family’s life change
Nurses often use the aspect of time as an excuse not to conduct a family interview, however, Wright and Leahey (2009) clearly demonstrate how integrating families into patient care does not have to consume a lot of time. Using the Calgary Family Assessment Model (CFAM) and Calgary Family Intervention Model (CFIM), a family interview can be organized and conducted in a less amount of time, and end in a greater understanding of the patient and family. The CFAM contains three major categories including structural, developmental, and functional, which can be used to assess a family or help them address a specific health issue (Wright & Leahey, 2009). The CFIM uses assessments focusing on strengths, meaning that it uses the strengths of each individual family member, and the unit as a whole to provide positive interventions. This allows the interventions to focus on encouraging the family, rather than their deficits or dysfunctions (Wright and Leahey, 2009). During the 15-minute interview, it is suggested to have the entire family present so that the interviewer is able note reactions and collaborate with each family member, thus providing the most acceptable plan of care for the entire family.
Prepare a critical analysis of a qualitative study focusing on the problem statement, study purpose, research question, literature review, and theoretical framework. This can be one of the selected articles from your previous literature review or a new peer-reviewed article.
A family health assessment is a process by which a nurse evaluates and describes the health status of a given family. It is a framework that helps to identify areas of potential risk for illness, opportunities for health education and actions needed to address these (World Health Organization, 2001). Specifics covered in a nurse led family assessment will include family history, perceptions about health, reports, health records, and any clinic test results. The nurse conducts an interview, compiles data and performs an appropriate
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate one family's experience of living with multiple chronic illnesses into the Calgary Family Assessment Model (CFAM) and Rolland's Chronic Health Challenge Framework. CFAM was developed by Dr. Lorraine M. Wright, a professor Emeritus of nursing and by Dr. Maureen Leahey, a manager of a mental health outpatient program both have over 25 years experience while still managing to supervise, teach, consult, write, and maintain a part-time clinical practice in individual, couple, and family therapy (Moxie, 2007). CFAM allows nurses to assess families during interviews. CFAM is a multidimensional framework consisting of three major categories: structural, dimensional and functional. (Wright & Leahey, 2005)
Family health assessment is an integral part of the formula used in creating a customized plan of care for the families’ health care. Family health assessment is also a tool that can be used to identify and evaluate the family’s health concerns, their life style and also helping families make good decisions regarding their family’s health. Family’s perception towards health and health promotion could be very different and unique, which makes the Family health assessment even more challenging for the nurses and health care professionals. Nurse’s have a moral obligation towards the society to help them promote their families health. The
Assessment, the first step in the nursing process, is a concept that must grasped in order for nurses to possess the solid foundation required to develop a plan and provide optimal care to their patients. This assessment is significant not only to individual patients, but their families, who are becoming increasingly recognized for their significance to the health and well being of individual family members. Nurses use a variety of tools in family nursing, and one of the most significant includes the Calgary Family Assessment Model (CFAM), developed by Wright and Leahey. CFAM is an integrated conceptual framework used for interviewing and making
No major events have occurred in their life since the death of AH’s mom 2 years ago. In the event of any crisis, they depend on the extended family and church members for emotional and morale support. After this family assessment, I felt that the nursing wellness diagnosis (2012) for this family would be:
As the society we live in continues to transform, nurses need a comprehensive tool to assess family’s health patterns. Family units are influenced by environment, biological, mental, social and spiritual factors. Assessing these areas for health promotion and disease prevention will take all of these influences into consideration (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). A priority to a family focused health assessment approach is to adequately question, assess and examine these areas. A tool to assist a family health assessment using a family focused approach is Gordon’s 11 Functional Patterns. This paper will use these 11
Using the CFAM to conduct a family interview, I identified a nursing diagnoses and interventions for the family I interviewed.
Family Assessment The family chosen for this assignment are family friends who agreed to conduct the interview and discuss any health issues they had. Because some of the questions were fairly invasive into their private lives, no names are given. There are five members in the family, and they all participated in the interview. Questions are based on the eleven functional health patterns.
A comprehensive family assessment provides a foundation to promote family health (Edelman & Mandle, 2011). 1987 Marjorie Gordon purposed 11 functional health patterns to use for guidance in order to facilitate nurses to have a frame work for the family assessment in. Gordon’s 11 functional health patterns help organizes basic family assessment information. This standardized format will guide nurses to complete the family assessment using system approaches, which will identify a patient’s
Although I enjoy all facets of nursing, I truly believe that it is in the field of family practice that the foundation of the nursing process begins. I have seen many patients over the course of my career without a stable, primary care healthcare provider. Health and wellness begins with day-to-day habits, and a nurse in family care is uniquely poised to give wellness advice and guidance. Family nurse practitioners often perform similar functions to physicians: making diagnoses; prescribing tests and medications; and helping patients over the course of their life trajectories lead more fulfilling lives. Primary caregiving is truly wellness promotion. It involves not simply healing the sick, but also reducing the likelihood that patients will become ill. I have seen so many patients with preventable illnesses that could have
Using Gordon’s functional health patterns to assess a family will guide the nurse in developing a comprehensive nursing assessment that is holistic in nature. Gordon’s functional health patterns are founded on 11 principles that are incorporated within the nursing practice. These 11 principles serve as a framework for a thorough nursing assessment in which to build a holistic and individual family care plan (Grand Canyon University, 2011). The author has developed family-focused questions for each of the 11 principles and utilized these questions as a tool to assess her own family. This paper will summarize the family assessment that was performed by the author and discuss two wellness nursing diagnoses that
The family has various functions that include teaching members’ values, morals and beliefs as they relate to health practices. Health can be defined as a complete state of wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease. Gordon’s functional health patterns are a methodology developed by Marjorie Gordon in 1987 to be used as a guide to establish a comprehensive nursing database (Kriegler & Harton, 1992). Gordon’s eleven functional health patterns are; health perception/ health
Family nursing is not all about patient centered care, it is focused on the needs of the family as a whole (Nursing theory). The main goal for family nursing is to improve any health concerns by assessing the needs,problems,influences, and strentghs of the family (Journal of nursing). There are four four types of approaches to family nursing. The four types of approaches to family nursing are, family as context, family as client, family as system, and family as component of society (the book). The purpose of this paper is to define, discuss, and give examples of the four types of approaches to family nursing.