Discuss from your nursing experience (you can make up a scenario about a time when you associated with a patient&family, use your imagination) an intervention you used with a family using each of the 4 types of approaches:

1. Family as Context

• Focuses on the assessment and care of an individual patient in which the family is the context.
• Traditional
• Individual is in the foreground and the family is in the background
• Family serves as context for the individual as a resource or stressor (so the family can be either anegative or positive context).
  An example of this would be in the care of children under 18. Physician rounds are generally “family centered” and done with the focus on the patient, but with discussion with both the patient and the parents or caregivers.

** For the Approaches to Family Nursing Assignment, think of a time in your clinical practice or with your own particular family when one of the members of the family needed health care and other members of the family were involved in that person’s health care needs. Explain who the family member in need of health care was, what was the condition of the family member, health problem, and health care needs. What roles did each family member take in helping care for the individual family member?

2. Family as Client

• Assesses all family members
• The nurse is interested in the way all the family members are individually affected by the health/hospitalization of one member of the family unit.
• The family is in the foreground.
• Focus is on every member of the family.

An example of could be when a beloved matriarch of the family gets a grave diagnosis, the nurse would ask the patient how her family was dealing with the diagnosis? How are the members of your family adjusting to this news? Will the care you will need be a problem for your family?

**For the Approaches to Family Nursing Assignment, think of a time in your clinical practice or with your own particular family when one family member suffered from a health care problem and as a result other members of the family developed health care needs. Describe the health needs of all of the family members and the overall affects of the family members’ illness on the rest of the family.

3. Family as System

• The family as a whole is the patient. The focus is on the individual and the family simultaneously.
• Interactions between family members become the target for nursing interventions.
• Emphasis is on the interactions between the family members.
• Runs on the theory that when something happens to one part of the system, the other parts of the system are affected as well (if one member of the family becomes ill, then the other members of the family are affected as well).
  For example, when a child is diagnosed with cancer, the nurse may ask the father, what has changed between you and your wife since the diagnosis? How has this devastating diagnosis affected this child’s siblings?

**For the Approaches to Family Nursing Assignment, describe how the family interacts with one another when one family member becomes ill. Describe the types of interactions that occur such as one family member is in denial, one family member is crying and panicking, one family member becomes the caregiver, and so forth. Base your answer on your practice or your personal experience.

4. Family as Component of Society

• Looks at the family as a component of society.
• The family as a whole interacts with other institutions to receive, exchange, or give communication or services.
• This is a major aspect of Community Health nursing.
• Examples of this may include suggesting a support group for a patient/family for their disease, or asking how “society” (those outside of their family) have reacted to their diagnosis.

**For the Approaches to Family Nursing Assignment, describe how one family used a variety of community resources to help them care for a family member who has become ill or who has been diagnosed with a health care problem. What resources did the family use or seek? What were the results? How effective were the healthcare resources for the family and the ill family member? What problems were encountered when the family tried to obtain community resources? Approaches to Family Nursing Essay Assignment.

MORE INFO 

Approaches to Family Nursing

Introduction

I work in family nursing, so I’m often asked about my approach to this specialty. There are many different ways to approach nursing with families and it’s important for nurses to know what kind of setting they’re working in. In this article, we’ll talk about some of the most common types of family practice settings: chronic care, catastrophic care and health promotion.

Family practice.

Family practice is a specialty of nursing. Family practice nurses work with families to provide health care, ranging from prenatal care and vaccinations to treating infections and chronic illnesses. Family practice can be an option if you have time to volunteer at a local hospital or clinic, as well as if you’re interested in working with people of all ages.

• Hospital-based: Hospital-based family physicians are employed by hospitals and clinics that specialize in providing obstetric care (birth), pediatrics (children), geriatrics (elderly), internal medicine or general surgery services (general medical conditions affecting various body systems). They may also perform some laboratory testing or X-rays when needed for diagnosis purposes. Some hospital-based physicians do not see patients outside the walls of their facility unless they are performing special procedures such as surgeries on patients who need extended observation periods after surgery; these doctors usually work closely with other specialists such as radiologists or cardiologists who treat patients at different locations within the same healthcare system together.* Private Practice: Private practitioners provide primary medical care from their offices rather than through hospitals; however many still see patients at local emergency rooms when necessary due to lack of space within private practices themselves due to insufficient staffing levels resulting from high demand levels during peak hours between 8am – 4pm Monday thru Friday.”

Chronic care.

Chronic care is a long-term condition that requires regular monitoring and treatment. The main difference between chronic and acute conditions is the frequency of visits to the health care setting, but chronic care can be managed in primary care settings as well as community health settings.

For example, if you have diabetes and require daily medication adjustments to manage your blood sugar levels, this would be considered chronic care because it needs ongoing monitoring from your doctor or nurse practitioner (NP).

Catastrophic care.

• Catastrophic care.

• Emergency rooms and preparedness.

• Response to disasters, pandemics and bioterrorism.

Health promotion.

Health promotion is a way of looking at the health of the family as a whole. It focuses on prevention and early intervention, rather than waiting until someone has been sick to intervene.

Health promotion involves looking at your own body, asking questions about how you feel and what you’re doing every day. This might include taking some time to think about what goes on around you, such as if there’s anything that could prevent or reduce stress in your life (e.g., exercise). It also involves taking an interest in other people’s lives—paying attention to friends’ health concerns or noticing when something seems off with their behavior (e.g., do they seem tired?). Finally, it involves thinking about how much responsibility we have for others: for example, if someone close has gotten sick because they weren’t feeling well themselves due to stressors such as work overload; depression; substance abuse issues etc…

There are many different ways to approach nursing with families.

There are many different ways to approach family nursing. The important thing is that you understand your role as a nurse with families and how you can help them. It’s also important to be sensitive when working with the family, especially if they have children or other dependents in their lives.

If you’re interested in becoming an independent family practitioner, consider taking classes at a local community college or online through sites like Coursera and Udemy (you’ll need access to these services). You may also want to consider obtaining certification from one of several organizations like ACN-PNP (American College of Nurse Practitioners), AANP (American Academy of Nurse Practitioners), ANCC (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) and others listed on the American Nurses Association website at https://www.nursingworldwidersourceguide/clinical_practice_leadership_and_leadership_development/.

Conclusion

Family nursing is a special type of nursing care that involves working with the whole family. Family nurses help patients and their loved ones achieve the best possible physical, emotional, and social well-being by providing them with high-quality health care. In this blog post, we looked at some approaches to family nursing.