GUIDELINES FOR FAMILY NURSING PRACTICE

FAMILY NURSING
- Family nursing is a kind of nursing practice in which the family is the unit of
services.
Family nursing includes assessment of family members’ physical and psychological health
and wellbeing, the family’s capacity and capability to provide care and support for the
patient or client and where appropriate, the use of nursing interventions to provide support
to the family and to facilitate the family’s aptitude and competence managing family
members’ health and wellbeing during the patient or client’s illness.
Assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating nursing care are steps used to deliver
care to clients system, and in the home.

Roles of Health Care Provider in Family Health Care

 HEALTH MONITOR- Detects deviation from health of individuals, families, groups,
and communities through contacts/visits with them
 PROVIDER OF CARE- Develops the family’s capability to take care of the sick,
disabled, or dependent member and also Provides direct nursing care to sick or
disabled in the home, clinic, school, or workplace.
 COORDINATOR- Coordinates with individuals, families, and groups for health related
services provided by various members of the health team as well as coordinates
nursing program with other health programs like environmental sanitation, health
education, dental health, and mental
 FACILITATOR- motivates and enhances community participation in terms of planning,
organizing, implementing, and evaluating health services and initiates and
participates in community development activities
 TEACHER- Conducts pre and post-consultation conferences for clinic clients; acts as a
resource speaker on health and health related services; Initiates the use of tri-media
(radio/TV, cinema plugs, and print ads) for health education purposes
 COUNSELOR- motivates changes in health behavior in individuals, families, groups,
and communities that also include lifestyle in order to promote and maintain health

What would happen if nurses are unable assess the family thoroughly?

 The health of each family member affects the other members and contribute
to the level of family health as a whole
  Some families can cope successfully, and other are with limited coping skills
 Cultural and family values influence decisions about health services like
immunizations regular visits to the birth control

There are five principles guide and enhance family nursing practice;
1. Work with the family collectively
2. Start where the family is
3. Adapt nursing intervention to the family’s stage development
4. Recognize the validity of family structural variations
5. Emphasize family strengths

1. WORK WITH THE FAMILY COLLECTIVELY

 Set aside usual focus on individual

 View the family as one unit
 Community health nurses want to involve all of the family during nurse-client
interaction
 Encourage everyone’s participation

2. START WHERE THE FAMILY IS

 Community health nurses should begin at the present, not the ideal level of
functioning
 Conduct a family assessment to ascertain the members needs and level of health
 Determine collective interests, concerns and properties

3. ADAPT NURSING INTERVENTION TO THE FAMILY’S STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT

 Awareness of family’s developmental stage enables the nurse to assess the
appropriateness of the family’s level of functioning and to tailor intervention
accordingly.
4. RECOGNIZE THE VALIDITY OF FAMILY STRUCTURAL VARIATIONS
Many families seen by community health nurses are nontraditional, such as single-
parent families and unmarried couples so, we should remember these two
important principles:
 *What is normal for one family is not necessarily normal for another.
* Families are constantly changing
5. EMPHASIZE FAMILY STRENGTHS
 Attention on family weakness, looking for and referring to them as needs or
problems
 Families need their strength reinforced
 Emphasizing a family strength makes people feel better about themselves
 The nurse lists positive points about an otherwise negative situation

Throughout the family visit, you must remember that the ultimate goal is to assist the family
in becoming independent of your services

Health as a Goal of Family Health Care

 HEALTH DEFICIT- this refers to conditions of health breakdowns or advent of illness
in the family
 HEALTH THREAT- these are the conditions that make it more likely for accidents,
disease or failure to thrive or develop to occur.
 FORESEEABLE CRISIS- these are anticipated periods of unusual demand on the family
in terms of time or resources
 WELLNESS POTENTIAL- this refers to states of wellness and the likelihood for health
maintenance or improvement to occur depending on the desire of the family

o Four thoughts will help you to clarify your working relationship with families:
o The family functioned in a manner that worked for them before you ever met
them
o If you ever feel obliged to do something for a family, consider who did this
before you were available
o Find family strengths even in the most deprived family situation
o If you were in a similar situation, would you manage, cope, or function as well
as the members of this family