CHAPTER 6: FAMILY HEALTH

PROMOTION
Definitions:
Family health: a multifaceted concept involving a family’s ability to adapt, their
resilience, support of each other, communication, and freedom from psychopathology

- “A holistic definition of family health encompasses all aspects of family life,

including interaction and health care function. A healthy family has a sense of
well-being.”

Family Health Promotion: process by which families improve or maintain physical,

social, emotional, and spiritual well-being as a unit and for each member

*important to remember nurse’s facilitate family health promotion not only during
times of illness and stress, but as a preventive strategy all of the time
 Models
-Models applicable to family health and/or health promotion: Family Health Model, Family
Resilience Model, MCMaster Model of Family functioning, Family Health Promotion Model,
Developmental Model of Health and Nursing, and Model of the Health-Promoting Family.

These are used to help us:

1. Understand the level of health the families are going through

2. Help us design interventions
3. Facilitate organization of the family nursing literature

-Example Family Health Model: This model emphasizes the biophysical, holistic, and
environmental factors that influence health.

-Example Model of the Health Promoting Family: It identifies the conditions for a family to act
in an optimal way for health.
Health Promotion Strategies and Nursing Interventions
Strategies and interventions that facilitate health promotion:
-Empowerment -Promotion of family integrity
-Maintenance of family processes - Exercise Promotion
-Environmental Management -Mutual Goal Setting
-Parent Education -Offering Support

Nursing Interventions focus on: building resources for the family and promoting change within
the family unit.
Components of Family Nursing Interventions
1. Family Self-Care Contract
2. Family Empowerment
3. Guidance & Offering Info
4. Using Rituals/Routines & Family Time
5. Family Mealtime & Healthy Eating
Components of Family Nursing Interventions Cont
● Family Self-Care Contract: helps both the nurse and family collaborate to set as well as reach
mutual goals.
○ Increases family’s ability to make healthy decisions & facilitates empowerment.
● Family Empowerment: allows families to work together to achieve and maintain family health
○ Focuses on the family’s involvement in goal setting, planning, and acting to create change.
● Guidance & Offering Info: Evokes the families own strengths and resources that help them to
support one another.
○ The nurse can teach family awareness and encourage family enrichment as well as provide
resources that strengthen the family as a whole.
● Using Rituals/Routines & Family Time: predictable routines & meaningful rituals lead to
healthier outcomes.
○ With routines/rituals, families are able to prepare and plan which allows for stability and less
stress resulting in better family life
● Family Mealtime & Family Eating: Facilitates the improvement of family communication, fosters
family tradition, and teaches life skills to the young.
○ Nurses should encourage shared meals to enhance family bonding and communication.
Things to Consider:
How the family defines health and health promotion will influence how and if they plan/ adhere
to activities that promote family health

- It is important to listen to the family you are working with and choose interventions unique to
them.

The family’s beliefs and perceived barriers/benefits will affect the success of the interventions
presented to them.

- Ex: In order to encourage fostering table time (a trait of a healthy family), each member of the
family must first value spending that time together and believe participating will enhance their
family health.

Consider the family structure (same sex parents, grandparents raising grandkids, single
parent) and how these factors contribute to family health or how these factors make families
more vulnerable to impaired family health
 Budd Family Case Study
- Traditional family:

→ James (father): employed without benefits. He thinks parenting should be the women’s job. Is traveling for work most of
the time. Doesn't spend much time with family due to traveling.

→ Eleanor (mother): 6 months pregnant. Full-time school teacher. Parenting disagreement with James (Hanna). Planning to
be a “stay at home” mother after baby.

→ Hanna (oldest child/James's daughter): Usually a good student. Gets her way when going to James. Acts up when she
returns from spending time with her biological mother. Helps Eleanor with Dustin.

→ Dustin (3.5 yr old): Is excited but jealous of the new baby. Acts up a lot more than before. Has started to sleep with
parents at night. Gives excuses (tummy hurting) to get parent’s attention.

Family: They all tend to be very busy. James (father) is traveling most of the time due to his job and rarely spends time with
his family. Family meal time is not spent together. They usually eat fast food meals 2 times a week. Sunday is the family’s
only day together for church. Eleanor (mother) is concerned about their financial stability after having baby #3 in 3 months.

Class, take 5 minutes to brainstorm the different stressors you can see within this family now and
developing in the future.
 Family Stressors
● Financial Stability
- James employed without benefits
- Eleanor leaving her job after giving birth
- New baby on the way, will arrive in 3 months
- Dustin’s preschool expenses
● Parenting roles/styles
- James’s perception about gender roles
- Difference in parenting styles (Hanna)
● Household Tasks
- Eleanor feels stressed about taking care of all household tasks
- James rarely around to help out
● Shared family time
- Shared family meal time rarely happens
- Family’s only day spent together is Sunday
● Life changes
- New baby girl’s arrival
- Dustin’s change in behavior
- Hanna’s change in behavior after visiting her mother
 Nursing Interventions
● Family Self-Care Contract:
→ Establish a contract including all family members (Children included)
→ Help family share their perceived health issues
→ Establish/Prioritize goals
→ Discuss strategies to help them meet their goals.
● Family empowerment and Strengths
→ Praise the family’s strengths and base interventions on that.
→ Enhance problem solving within the family
→ Offer resources to help resolve parenting conflicts
→ Offer opportunities for the family members to express their feelings about their family experiences
● Anticipatory Guidance
→ Help the family prepare for changes after the arrival of the new family member
→ Encourage the family to make the necessary changes (ex: role sharing)
→ Give the family resources to promote family health (ex: healthy eating habits)
● Routines and Family time
→ Assist family to plan for family time, couple time, and alone time
→ Discuss the importance of family meal time and promote healthy eating
→ Explore common family leisure activities and shared hobbies
Questions?