Family Health Assessment: Nursing Philosophy

Family assessment is crucial as it helps address the issues affecting family members. According to Mansfield et al. (2019, p. 825), this type of assessment provides the nurse a “multidimensional view into the family’s life”. Similarly, nursing interventions for health promotion ensures the family members develops a clear understanding of their emotional and physical well-being. Nevertheless, this paper attempts to describe the structure of the family in which the respondents were interviewed, to summarize the general health behavior, to provide an in-depth description of two functional health patterns and the application of the family system theory. Therefore, when conducting a family interview, it is imperative to focus on key attributes such as nutrition, exercise, role relationship, cognitive and health perception which affect the family’s overall health.

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Family Structure

The family interviewed, the Jason family, comprises of four members: father, mother, and a 12 and 5- year old boys. The family has been living in a three-bedroom house for the past 10 years. They are of Asian-Indian origin – they migrated to the U.S 20 years ago. They follow and worship Sikhism, a type of religion whose origin is in the Punjab region. The father owns a sanitary ware shop with the wife working as a registered nurse in one of the healthcare facilities in the region. They are a middle class family who works extra hard to ensure their children receive high quality education. Their children go to school by bus while the wife’s workplace is 20-minutes’ drive away. Overall, Jason family was very generous and welcoming and was more than willing to share their life story.

Family Health and Health Behaviors

The Jason family is more cautious about their health, especially since the mother is a registered nurse. She places huge amount of emphasis on nutrition, elimination, activity, cognitive, sensory perception, self-perception, role relationship, sexuality, and coping. The parents constantly educate their children the importance of making healthy choices to eschew lifestyle diseases. As evidenced in the interview, the family always strives to maintain a balanced diet comprising of fruits, vegetables, protein and carbs. According to the husband, having a diet rich in nutrients helps ensure they remain physically and mentally active. On the issue of sleep, the family usually sleeps for about 10 hours every day. However, the children are allowed to take naps during the day, especially during weekends and holidays. As for elimination, the members tend to visit the bathroom up to six times a day. The family takes seriously any incontinence, especially for their children. The family takes physical activities very seriously-they occasionally participate in exercises such as cardio at least thrice a week.

All the family members, including the children can read and write well. Similarly, there are no issues of forgetfulness in the family. Additionally, the Jason family has no issues with their senses – they perceive illness when a member feels weak or lacks appetite. Also, each family member has a role to play in the house, especially during weekends where everyone participates in the cleaning. The husband and wife view sexuality as a feeling that has helped their family stay together. Currently, the family is healthy and relies on the wife and mother for any advice regarding the health issues.

Findings

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The two functional health pattern strengths of the Jason family, based on the questionnaire, are Sleep/Rest and Activity/Exercise. On sleep, the family gets enough sleep as per their physician’s recommendation. However, Twenge et al. (2019) notes that children aged 2-5 years should sleep for a maximum of 13 hours. This explains why the five-year boy takes naps during the day-for about 30 minutes. In essence, the family sleep functional health pattern is strong which ensure they remain mentally active and healthier. On the issue of exercise, the father is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the members go out on walks or gym for about one hour. Although the mother does not like exercising a lot, she made it a routine to walk to work on Thursdays.

The three areas in which barriers were noticeable are cognition, coping and nutrition. Firstly, on cognition, English is their second language which someti