Family Nursing Theory Paper

Theory is an arrangement of thoughts meant to describe something. These thoughts and ideas usually have basic principles that validate the purpose of the proposed theory. Nursing theory is a well thought out scholarly structure of concepts. These concepts are created to help guide nursing practice. They explain the fundamentals of nursing care. Multiple clinical decisions are based upon nursing theories. There are many different types of nursing theories developed primarily by nurses. Nursing theorist’s main goal is to examine nursing practice and explain the working or non-working parts

Environmental conditions can directly impact one’s health and safety. Davis explains, that primary prevention through assessments of the home and community are

Although I enjoy all facets of nursing, I truly believe that it is in the field of family practice that the foundation of the nursing process begins. I have seen many patients over the course of my career without a stable, primary care healthcare provider. Health and wellness begins with day-to-day habits, and a nurse in family care is uniquely poised to give wellness advice and guidance. Family nurse practitioners often perform similar functions to physicians: making diagnoses; prescribing tests and medications; and helping patients over the course of their life trajectories lead more fulfilling lives. Primary caregiving is truly wellness promotion. It involves not simply healing the sick, but also reducing the likelihood that patients will become ill. I have seen so many patients with preventable illnesses that could have

Families always affect one another, even when they feel distanced. The family unit can promote health or it can be a source of stress. It is the nurse's task to use family relationships to act as health facilitators for the patient, and, if necessary, treat the family as part of the patient's social environment. The family creates the patient's environment just as much as a clean room or an accessible place to exercise or access to appropriate medication.

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).

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.

Nursing is a unique profession which is built upon theories that guide everyday nursing practice. According to Taylor, Lillis, & Lynn (2015), “Nursing theory differentiates nursing from other disciplines and activities in that it serves the purposes of describing, explaining, predicting, and controlling desired outcomes of nursing care practices” (p. 27). Many nurses may unknowingly apply a theory or a combination thereof, along with critical thinking to get the best outcome for a patient. Theories are used in practice today because they have been supported by research and help the profession uphold its boundaries. Most nursing theories consist of four concepts which are the patient, the environment, health, and nursing. Each patient is at the center of focus and they have the right to determine what care will be given to them using informed

Family Nurse Practitioner, as an advanced practice nurse has to understand the importance of evidence-based practice in the delivery of patient care. The culture of nursing is evolving and changing giving advanced practice nurses more authority to advocate and remain proactive in the health care field. Family nurse practitioners should actively engage in the nursing research or advocate for bringing new evidence based practice into their clinical sites to improve the quality of patient care, promoting health and decreasing morbidity and mortality

-A succinct philosophy of family nursing is seen in The Association for the Care of Children’s Health standards stating the expectation for healthcare providers to facilitate family/professional collaboration at all levels of care, and to recognizing family as the constant in the patient’s life whereas the healthcare providers will fluctuate (p.40, 2003).

Think back to when you were a child and you became ill. All you wanted was the protection and guidance of your mother to take care of you. If you had older siblings, maybe they were the ones that helped make you feel better. Even as we grow older, we rely on our family for support when we are not well. When a family member is ill, it is not just that one person that suffers. When an illness strikes a family member, it oftentimes includes the whole family to deal with the illness also. There are different approaches that a nurse can utilize when dealing with family nursing. Approaches include family as context, as a client, system and a component of society. In this paper, I will discuss where and how these approaches are utilized.

Moxie, 2007. Maureen Leahey & Lorraine Wright. Family Nursing Resources. Retrieved February 3, 2008 from http://www.familynursingresources.com/aboutus.htmPerry, A & Potter, P. ( 2006) Canadian fundamentals of nursing. (J.Ross-Kerr &

The purpose of this paper is to display how such assessment is essential not on an individual basis, but rather on a larger scale in relation to family nursing. Family nursing “centers on the family as a unit of care, addressing family needs in response to a member’s illness or threat to health, rather than focusing on the individual. An understanding of families’ needs at particular developmental stages, how they communicate and function, and an ability to undertake a family assessment is foundational knowledge for family nursing” (St John, 2009, p.6). Often, nurses encounter the families of their individual patients on a daily basis, yet family assessments are not performed. This is because nurses often feel there is little time to engage families effectively, and in fact lack of time, has been identified by nurses as the primary barrier to engaging families (Kaakinen, 2015, p.109). Evidence based practice however, has proven that “a 15 minute, or even shorter, family interview can be purposeful, effective, informative, and even healing” (Wright, 2013, p.264). This 15 minute interview has been adopted in many acute care settings in involves five key components; manners, therapeutic conversation, key questions, commendation, and the genogram. These ideas represent the theoretical underpinning and are a condensed version of the Calgary Family Assessment Model (Wright, 2013). This model is large, but can be customized and adapted to the function of each individual

“Family-centered care” is a term heard often in healthcare settings and in nursing practice. Family-centered care has been recognized as being an integral part to patient health, satisfaction and health care quality (Kuo, et al, 2012). Family-centered care is implemented with the goal to increase partnerships between, families, patients and providers; and has been prioritized as a core-concept of quality healthcare (Gallo, Hill, Hoagwood & Olin, 2016) Many professionals, however, would be hard-pressed to state what the term “family-centered care” actually means and how it applies to nursing practice. They would be at a loss for how to implement family-centered care and what is absolutely necessary to have in order for family-centered care to be successful. Advanced practice nurses are faced with the challenge of adhering to family-centered care in their practice. Illness, both chronic and acute, and health does not just affect the patient involved in care. Illness and health affect the patient, their children, their spouses, their parents, their brothers, their sisters, their grandparents and anyone else involved in their life. Research by Davidson (2009) supports the idea that the perceived effectiveness of communication between healthcare providers and the patient’s family is related to the overall satisfaction of care. Advance

I found the study on family nursing theory in education and practice by Nyirati, Denham, Raffle, and Ware (2012) to be very interesting. The authors found that most Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) programs teach family nursing theory in some way, whether it be in a course of its own or integrated throughout the curriculum (Nyirati, Denham, Raffle, & Ware, 2012). However, gaps still exist in the education of FNP students on family nursing theory in the United States (Nyirati et al., 2012). Furthermore, the authors of the study noted that even though the FNP programs across the country were teaching about family nursing theory in their curriculum, the programs failed to teach students how to apply the theories to the clinical setting (Nyirati et al., 2012).

According to the Arslanian, Hicks, Whall and Algase (2005) nursing theories have unique views. Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) not only focus on diagnosis and medical intervention but also considers family, environment and patient responses in their plan of care. This makes them different from other health care providers like physicians and physicians assistants (Arslanian et al., 2005). I agree that it is important for us as an APN to use theories to guide our own advanced practice because theory gives identification to nurses, and distinguishes nurses from other profession by its unique contribution to the clinical practice. Nursing is an autonomous profession (Kenny, 2013). Nursing theory provides various information to understand the patient