FAMILY ASSESMENT

TOOLS AND THEIR

APPLICATION IN
FAMILY PRACTICE
FAMILY ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Design for family physicians to have a systematic way of understanding

the family and to aid in evaluating the impact of illness on a person and
his/her role in the family
1. FAMILY GENOGRAM

a scheme or graphic chart representation of both the genetic pedigree of

family and key psychosocial and interactional data using standardized
symbols.
1. FAMILY GENOGRAM

USES:
• As a quick, overview of the interrelationship between family
members
• As a way of looking at the family’s medical & psychosocial problems
• As a tool for understanding the multigenerational family systems
 1. FAMILY GENOGRAM

STANDARD GENOGRAM SYMBOLS

1. FAMILY GENOGRAM
A complete genogram should include:
1. The names and ages of all family members
2. The exact dates of birth, marriage, separation, divorce, death (including cause), and
other significant life event
3. Information covering three or more generations
4. Illnesses (including hereditary and significant problems or illnesses)
5. The firstborn of each family to the left with other siblings sequentially to the right
6. Indication of which members live together in the same household
7. The the names of two families with the address of the index family
8. The informants
9. The date the genogram was generated
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2. FAMILY LIFELINE
• A tool that summarizes the history of the family’s significant
experiences over a period of time in a chronologically-sequenced
manner.

• It includes both normative and non-normative crises

• It is sometimes placed side by side with the illness history
2. FAMILY LIFELINE
Uses
• Allow exploration of certain family issue
• Allows a quick retrieval of information that identifies factorss that
may affect the health of the family
 Year Age Life event Severity of abdominal
pain

2010 13 Father lost his job and parents started to have frequent ***
quarrels

2011 14 Transferred from a private to a public school **

2012 15 Had difficulties at school and conflicts with parents *****

2013 16 Graduated from high school *

2014 17 Started college and lived away from home in a dormitory

2015 18 Shifted to another course *

2016 19 Had better grades and joined several college organizations ***

2017 20 Graduated from college ***

2018 21 Went back home and studied for licensure exams ***

2019 22 Had difficulty finding work resulting in additional conflicts ********

with mother.