NRS 429 Assignment: Family Health Assessment Part I
NRS 429 Assignment Family Health Assessment Part I
Family Health Assessment
The promotion of optimum health of families is imperative in healthcare. Nurses utilize their understanding of family structure and diversity in needs to develop care plans that promote the health, wellbeing, and recovery of family members. Family assessment enables nurses to provide holistic care that addresses both the actual and potential needs of the family members. The assessment provides insights into family strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to be explored to achieve the desired health-related goals. Therefore, this paper examines an interview performed with a family to identify its health status and application of family systems theory to promote positive change in the family’s functions over time.
Description of the Family Structure
The interviewed family comprises seven members that include parents aged between 40 and 50 years, a grandparent aged 75 years, and two children aged between 10 and 20 years. The family is of African American ethnicity. It is a Christian family living in a family-owned home. The father is a nurse while the mother is a teacher. The grandfather is a retired army officer. The children are school-going. The family is of the middle class, living in a healthy environment. It engages in activities that contribute to the development of the community. For example, it assists the poor in achieving their health-related needs.
Overall Health Behaviors of the Family
The interview revealed the family to be of moderate health. Most of the family members were found healthy except the grandfather who is diabetic and suffers from depression. The family engages in activities that contribute to their positive health. They include engaging in active physical activities, eating healthy diets, and utilizing social support systems to achieve their health-related needs. The interview also showed the family to utilize screening services for health problems, including hypertension, cancer, and obesity. The interview showed some areas of weaknesses that threaten its health. They include high costs of care and access to specialized care. The family raised concerns about the increasing costs of addressing the care needs of the grandfather. In most cases, the family found it hard to access the specialized care he needed due to its geographical location in the region. Therefore, it was essential to assist the family to identify ways of addressing their health-related challenges.
Functional Health Pattern Strengths
The interview revealed some functional health pattern strengths in the family. One of the strengths relates to values/health perception
NRS 429 Assignment Family Health Assessment Part I
patterns. The family was aware of its health needs and how to achieve them. It understood the unique health needs of each member of the family. It was also aware of the importance of engaging in health practices that promote its health. For example, its members utilize screening services to identify and manage health problems promptly. The family members also engage in active physical activity to prevent health problems, including obesity, overweight, diabetes, and hypertension. The second functional area of strength identified during the interview is coping. The family acknowledged experiencing stressors that affect its overall health. However, it uses effective coping strategies such as seeking support from each other and community members to overcome the stressors. It also seeks professional support from counselors and healthcare providers to overcome adversities. Effective coping with stressors has enabled the family to develop resilience to unforeseen events that may affect its members (Davey et al., 2020).
Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: NRS 429 Assignment: Family Health Assessment Part I
Areas of Health Problems or Barriers to Health
One of the barriers to health identified in the family is the high cost of care. The family members noted that achieving grandfather’s health needs has been costly for them. The grandfather needs frequent hospitalizations for depression and diabetes, which increases the costs incurred in the family. The costs incurred in seeking specialized carehave been rising, hence, the challenge. The other barrier identified from the interview is access to specialized care. The family noted challenges in accessing specialized care it needed due to its geographical location in the region (Huot et al., 2019). One of the health problems identified from the interview is the grandfather suffering from diabetes and depression. The children are also predisposed to lifestyle-related problems due to too much screen time and playing video games (Anderson & Durstine, 2019). Therefore, it was essential to educate the family about the importance of engaging consistently in activities that promote their health.
Application of Family Systems Theory
The family systems theory can be appliedto solicit changes in family members that, in turn, initiate positive change to the overall functions over time. The theory provides insights on how family members can be influenced to contribute to their optimal health (Bottorff et al., 2021). The analysis of theoretical concepts such as sibling behavior and family problems increases nurses’ understanding of family functioning and health. Therefore, they can use it to strengthen positive behaviors that will contribute to their optimal functioning and the health of the family (Bottorff et al., 2021). In addition, the theory can be used to increase the understanding of the family members of the interdependence in their roles and how to engage in activities contributing to their optimal health.
Conclusion
Overall, a family assessment is important in nursing practice. Nurses utilize it to understand the actual and potential family needs. The interview performed with the family revealed some strengths and weaknesses. It is important for nurses working with the family to empower the members to identify opportunities for minimizing their barriers to health. In addition, they should explore the incorporation of the family systems theory into the care given to the family to ensure its optimum health.
References
Anderson, E., & Durstine, J. L. (2019).Physical activity, exercise, and chronic diseases: A brief review.Sports Medicine and Health Science, 1(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhs.2019.08.006
Bottorff, J. L., Huisken, A., Hopkins, M., & Friesen, L. (2021).Scaling up a community-led health promotion initiative: Lessons learned and promising practices from the Healthy Weights for Children Project.Evaluation and Program Planning, 87, 101943. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2021.101943
Davey, J., Herbst, J., Johns, R., Parkinson, J., Russell-Bennett, R., &Zainuddin, N. (2020). The role of health locus of control in value co-creation for standardized screening services. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 30(1), 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-08-2018-0180
Huot, S., Ho, H., Ko, A., Lam, S., Tactay, P., MacLachlan, J., &Raanaas, R. K. (2019). Identifying barriers to healthcare delivery and access in the Circumpolar North: Important insights for health professionals.International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 78(1), 1571385. https://doi.org/10.1080/22423982.2019.1571385
NRS 429V Week 1 Discussion 2
In the assigned reading, “How to Write Learning Objectives That Meet Demanding Behavioral Criteria,” Kizlik explained that “objectives that are used in education, whether they are called learning objectives, behavioral objectives, instructional objectives, or performance objectives are terms that refer to descriptions of observable behavior or performance that are used to make judgments about learning.” How do health providers design educational programs to clearly articulate objectives to engage both patients as well as families?
According to the family systems theory, a member of a family has to change its behaviors and influence everyone in the family to follow along and change to promote health and wellness. An example is a family member with a history of obesity decides to lose weight and creates a diet plan and exercise regimen and encourages the rest of the family to join him in the journey of losing weight. Behavioral changes when an individual decides to change for the better and act on it.
The family systems theory helps in teaching behavioral changes because once a family member is involved in the plan of care and already decides to take part in the process of helping to live a better lifestyle, it is much easier to influence the rest of the family.
According to the ebookHealth Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum, variables that affect the ability to learn are race, ethnicity, immigration status, disabilities, sex/gender/sexual orientation, environmental threats, poverty, access to health care, and lack of education can be barriers that affect a patient’s ability to learn and move forward with the behavioral changes.
A patient’s readiness to learn to change their lifestyle for a better life improves the learning outcomes because once a patient understands the reasoning behind the need for the change, it is easier to change its bad habits to new habits and live a healthy lifestyle.
References
Grand Canyon University (Ed). (2018). Health promotion: Health & wellness across the continuum. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/
Response
This is an outstanding response Ronald. I agree with it. Health conditions tend to emanate from intricate factors such as those advanced by social, economic, and political determinants. Health is determined by the manner in which societies are structured and how health policy agendas are influenced by the political nature in the society (Laverack, 2017). Health promotion interventions that address behavioral risks are capable of supporting policies to enhance health or uphold inequalities in a society. This is attributed to the fact that behavioral change models have insignificant impact on wider conditions that result in poor health. Therefore, any health promotion model intended to initiate behavioral changes should be adopted as a component of a winder, inclusive policy framework. Ensuring a comprehensive and multi-component health promotion model is appropriate in changing bad behaviors that can cause negative health effects (Laverack, 2017). Advancing health promotion model through a strong policy framework is crucial in giving people greater control over their lives instead of instructing them on what to do.
References
Laverack, G. (2017). The challenge of behaviour change and health promotion. Challenges, 8(2), 25.
https://nursingassignmentcrackers.com/nrs-429-assignment-family-health-assessment-part-i/