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Family Health Assessment

Name

Institution

Course

Date
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1. Describe the family structure. Include individuals and any relevant attributes

defining the family composition, race/ethnicity, social class, spirituality, and

environment.

I interviewed a blended family where the wife came with a child from her previous

marriage and the husband also came with the child from his previous marriage. Therefore,

both the husband and wife divorced their previous partners before joining hand in marriage.

The family consist of four children since the couples have two kids together. The family

purely consist of whites and they are Christians. Both parents have stable and well-paying

jobs, making them members of the high class in the society. The family stays in a beautiful

and peaceful environment, which favours the proper upbringing of the kids.

2. Summarize the overall health behaviors of the family. Describe the current

health of the family.

The family has a good and commendable health behaviour and they have adopted a

proactive approach to their lifestyle. The wife ensures that the family takes the appropriate

nutrition and does enough exercise to enhance their fitness. The family has a common health

policy that “prevention is better than cure.” Therefore, the family focuses on nutrition as a

way to promote good health and to prevent diseases. They follow a very strict diet regime

characterised by healthy and organic foods with very minimal food choices. The parents said

that they have intentionally cultivated the culture to promote their health and also to build the

culture of healthy eating in their kids at an early age. They aim to ensure that children adopts

the healthy practices and carries on to their adulthood. According to the family, cultivating

this culture is essential since the ever-changing world has a lot of inappropriate food that

might not be healthy for the kids (Beckmeyer & Russell, 2018).
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Moreover, the family values exercise as an essential part of their health regime both

for the parents and the kids. The parents discourage luxurious lifestyle among the children

especially playing video games for long since it makes them inactive. They include the

children in their daily 30-minutes workouts and also have a mandatory family workout

session every weekend. Besides, the kids are encouraged to participate in most outdoor

activities that makes them physically fit, including bike riding and sports both at home and in

school. The family does not invite the doctor most often for family check-ups unless in case

of an emergency. The approach adopted by the family works best for them since they are all

physically and mentally fit (Beckmeyer & Russell, 2018). Also, they have recorded very few

rates of sickness in the last one year.

3. Based on your findings, describe at least two of the functional health pattern

strengths noted in the findings. Discuss three areas in which health problems or

barriers to health were identified.

The dietary lifestyle of the family acted as their first functional health pattern strength.

The food choices that the family makes enables them to have a very healthy dietary lifestyle.

The selection criterion for the family food is that the selected food must be healthy and

organic. Impressively, the kids also prefer healthy snacks and they do not like most processed

snacks. The parents gives them the option of taking fruits instead of the processed snacks.

Their healthy lifestyle can be noticed by the type of food staff they store in the fridge since all

of them are healthy food. The parents act as role models to ensure the family does enough

exercise, which is their second strength. The family has a well-developed exercise routine

which they have managed to instil in their kids from a younger age. The routine include daily

exercises for the parents, family exercise session during the weekend, and physical activities

such as bike riding and sports for the children.

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The family has a health barrier in their sleep since they do not get enough sleep. The

parents work until late, which makes them to have inadequate sleep in most occasions.

Similar, the children have adopted the same habit and they stay until late at night, which

hinders them from having quality sleep. The parents admit that they face a challenge trying to

put their kids to sleep. It worsens during school nights since waking up early becomes a

problem. According to them, technological advancements can be blamed for this mess since

the kids spend some time on the internet before sleeping (Carr & Stratton, 2017). The family

does not value the frequent check-ups by the doctor, which is another health barrier that they

face. Despite acknowledging the importance of medical check-ups, the family admit that they

have not normalized frequent check-ups. The family also faces problem concerning the role

relationship. They admitted that they sometimes have open arguments concerning role

relationships, which poses the children at the risk of developing mental health problems.

4. Describe how family systems theory can be applied to solicit changes in family

members that, in turn, initiate positive changes to the overall family functions

over time.

According to Thompson et al. (2019), a family theory is a theory which views family not in

isolation of the single individuals but rather as one system. The individual behaviour of

family members are governed by boundaries set as a family and elements of agreements

made. The boundaries and elements distinguish the responsibilities and roles of each member

and also helps to create a framework of respect (Wu et al., 2020). We can apply the family

systems theory in our case to bring about change by aiding to define boundaries of behaviour.

For instance, the family can develop a boundary for the kids to sleep at a specific period.

Also the parents can develop a boundary to eliminate the aspect of arguing openly in front of

the kids as it might have dire impact on the children’s mental health.
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References

Beckmeyer, J. J., & Russell, L. T. (2018). Family structure and family management practices:

Associations with positive aspects of youth well-being. Journal of Family

Issues, 39(7), 2131-2154.

Carr, A., & Stratton, P. (2017). The score family assessment questionnaire: a decade of

progress. Family Process, 56(2), 285-301.

Thompson, H. M., Wojciak, A. S., & Cooley, M. E. (2019). Family-based approach to the

child welfare system: an integration of Bowen family theory concepts. Journal of

Family Social Work, 22(3), 231-252.

Wu, R. R., Sultana, R., Bylstra, Y., Jamuar, S., Davila, S., Lim, W. K., ... & Tan, P. (2020).

Evaluation of family health history collection methods impact on data and risk

assessment outcomes. Preventive medicine reports, 18, 101072.

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Appendix

FAMILY ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Values/Health Perception

 Why do you consider a healthy lifestyle as an important aspect in your family?

 Describe for me your family’s health values?

 How would you rate the health of the family on the overall?

2. Nutrition

 How regular do you take nutritious food?

 What snack options do you offer your children?

 What is your criterion if choosing family foods?

3. Sleep/Rest

 What are the average hours of sleep for the family members?

 Are naps a part of your daily routine?

 How important is sleep and rest to the family?

4. Elimination

 How often do the family use washrooms in a day?

 Has the family experienced any complication in terms of elimination?

 Do all member of the family have normal bowel movement?

5. Activity/Exercise

 How essential is physical exercise to the family?

 How often do you exercise?

 How do you incorporate exercise in your children’s daily routine?

6. Cognitive

 Does any member of the family have cognitive problem?

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 How often is reading practiced?

 How good is the decision making power of the different members of the family?

7. Sensory‐Perception

 Does any of the family member have hearing problem?

 How many times do you go for eye check-up?

 When was the last time any of you experienced a problem with either of the senses?

8. Self‐Perception

 What is your perception of self?

 Is there any member who experiences confidence or self-esteem issues?

 What do you do when depressed?

9. Role Relationship

 What criterion is used for defining roles?

 Do you have defined roles in the family?

 How is your bonding with other family members?

10. Sexuality

 What methods of safe sex do you use?

 Do you have any form of sex education for the children?

 How would you rate your sexual relationship?

11. Coping

 How do you cope with any type of medical emergency?

 How do you cope with any type of monetary crisis?

 How would you rate the resilience of your family members?