Calgary Assessment Model

Many people have many different definitions of a family. Some include family as the people they live with, some include their entire extended family, and some include friends, neighbors, coaches, and teachers. According to the Vanier Institute (2013), a family is “a combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth, and/or adoption” (para. 2). Whichever way you look at it, families often play a major role in life. It only makes sense that when a person begins to go through a drastic change in life such as illness, the family will be involved. This is why it is important that nurses learn how to provide suitable client and family centered care. They can do this by following the four

According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2008) “Each family is an unexplained mystery, unique in the ways it meets the needs of its members and society” (p. 550). Family nursing is a special field that involves the nurse and family working together to achieve progress for the family and its members in adjusting to transitions and responding to health and illness. The Friedman Family Assessment Model serves as a guide in family nursing to identify the developmental stage of the family, environmental data, family structure, composition, and functions as well as how the family manages stress and their coping mechanisms. From this data, three nursing diagnoses with interventions are developed.

work with individual families and with families as an aggregate within the population (Clark, 2003). Several areas will be presented such as biophysical, psychological, physical environmental, sociocultural, behavioral and health system considerations. The data obtained during family health assessment enable the nurse to make informed decisions about the health care needs of families (Clark).

All health care providers are familiar or have some idea of what family focused care entails. Family focused care can be practiced in any settings in healthcare, and nurses are familiar with this concept as this strong theory based teaching is emphasized throughout the nursing curriculum. With the trend of health care delivery shifting towards home based or community setting, it is now more than ever important for nurses and advance practice nurses (APN) to incorporate family nursing practice for improved outcomes for the patient and their families. This paper will discuss one of the many family nursing theory and its impact on the family nursing practice now and in the future.

Family nursing is not all about patient centered care, it is focused on the needs of the family as a whole (Nursing theory). The main goal for family nursing is to improve any health concerns by assessing the needs,problems,influences, and strentghs of the family (Journal of nursing). There are four four types of approaches to family nursing. The four types of approaches to family nursing are, family as context, family as client, family as system, and family as component of society (the book). The purpose of this paper is to define, discuss, and give examples of the four types of approaches to family nursing.

Sullivan, M. T. (2003). Caregiver Strain Index (CSI). Home Healthcare Nurse: The Journal for the Home Care and Hospice Professional, 21(3), 197-198. doi:10.1097/00004045-200303000-00024

Family health assessment is an integral part of the formula used in creating a customized plan of care for the families’ health care. Family health assessment is also a tool that can be used to identify and evaluate the family’s health concerns, their life style and also helping families make good decisions regarding their family’s health. Family’s perception towards health and health promotion could be very different and unique, which makes the Family health assessment even more challenging for the nurses and health care professionals. Nurse’s have a moral obligation towards the society to help them promote their families health. The

Helpful in times of stress, such as acute or long-term illness, nursing can engage the family in focusing on their

No major events have occurred in their life since the death of AH’s mom 2 years ago. In the event of any crisis, they depend on the extended family and church members for emotional and morale support. After this family assessment, I felt that the nursing wellness diagnosis (2012) for this family would be:

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate one family's experience of living with multiple chronic illnesses into the Calgary Family Assessment Model (CFAM) and Rolland's Chronic Health Challenge Framework. CFAM was developed by Dr. Lorraine M. Wright, a professor Emeritus of nursing and by Dr. Maureen Leahey, a manager of a mental health outpatient program both have over 25 years experience while still managing to supervise, teach, consult, write, and maintain a part-time clinical practice in individual, couple, and family therapy (Moxie, 2007). CFAM allows nurses to assess families during interviews. CFAM is a multidimensional framework consisting of three major categories: structural, dimensional and functional. (Wright & Leahey, 2005)

The family has various functions that include teaching members’ values, morals and beliefs as they relate to health practices. Health can be defined as a complete state of wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease. Gordon’s functional health patterns are a methodology developed by Marjorie Gordon in 1987 to be used as a guide to establish a comprehensive nursing database (Kriegler & Harton, 1992). Gordon’s eleven functional health patterns are; health perception/ health

Assessment, the first step in the nursing process, is a concept that must grasped in order for nurses to possess the solid foundation required to develop a plan and provide optimal care to their patients. This assessment is significant not only to individual patients, but their families, who are becoming increasingly recognized for their significance to the health and well being of individual family members. Nurses use a variety of tools in family nursing, and one of the most significant includes the Calgary Family Assessment Model (CFAM), developed by Wright and Leahey. CFAM is an integrated conceptual framework used for interviewing and making

Discuss the nursing interventions to be utilized with a family member who is in crisis in the care setting and interfering with the healthcare team’s performance.

Using Gordon’s functional health patterns to assess a family will guide the nurse in developing a comprehensive nursing assessment that is holistic in nature. Gordon’s functional health patterns are founded on 11 principles that are incorporated within the nursing practice. These 11 principles serve as a framework for a thorough nursing assessment in which to build a holistic and individual family care plan (Grand Canyon University, 2011). The author has developed family-focused questions for each of the 11 principles and utilized these questions as a tool to assess her own family. This paper will summarize the family assessment that was performed by the author and discuss two wellness nursing diagnoses that

A family health assessment is a significant instrument in conveying a health care plan for a family. This paper will discuss the nurse’s role in family assessment and how this task is performed. By the use of family focused open ended questions, 11 functional health patterns were covered. The health patterns were values and health perception, nutrition, sleep and rest, elimination, activities and exercise, cognitive, sensory-perception, self-perception, role relationship, sexuality, and coping. This principle is known as the Gordon’s functional health patterns. Family health assessment defines the assessment of actual and potential problems of individuals (Gordon, 1994). This assessment tool included 11 systematic principles for data collection of the family, and assists the nurses to develop a nursing diagnosis and appropriate interventions. Using Gordon’s functional health patterns, this paper will summarize the findings of each health pattern as well as the family based nursing diagnosis of each assessment. This paper will also discuss different health promotion strategies along with web-based resources, also including a system based theory guide in family assessment.