The Family Health Assessment

Family Health Assessment
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Family Health Assessment
When assessing a patient, it's important to develop a holistic approach; nurses are required to conduct a holistic assessment that includes not only the sick but also those who are healthy. A family assessment tool can help nurses develop a holistic approach to assess the health for specific families and ensure that the family stays healthy. An assessment tool is a strategy that helps nurses identify specific family health needs and identify an appropriate intervention to address these needs.
Overview of Family Health Assessment
Nurses need to be equipped with the necessary skills to conduct a family health needs assessment. Skills like active listening, patience and keenness are important when conducting a family assessment. Above all, nurses should be culturally sensitive when conducting an assessment to limit any communication barriers that might affect the whole process (Weber, 2005). When conducting a family assessment, nurses should use appropriate language combined with good questioning techniques to generate appropriate answers. All the responses should be well documented for future references, especially when developing a family health care plan (Gordon, 1994).
A family is generally defined as a group of individuals bonded together by marriage, adoption or blood. Being that each member has specific roles in a family; each member plays an important role to make the family function as required. Family members depend on each other and support each other in various roles (Weber, 2005). The definition of a family help nurses understand how a family function as a unit. Using the family assessment tool, nurses can understand the family needs and formulate an appropriate health care plan for different families (Weber, 2005).
The tool evaluates the family health patterns, providing better insight on the general health of a family (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). The assessment findings assist health care providers in addressing all the health needs, putting into consideration all the health concerns of each family. An assessment tool can generate important health care information like family food choices, family habits, the general lifestyle and the environment. All these information can assist in developing a suitable health care plan for specific families (Edelman & Mandle, 2010).
I interviewed one family using Gordon's' 11 functional health patterns, to understand the family values, health perception, nutrition, sleep/rest, elimination, activity/exercise, cognitive, sensory-perception, self-perception, role relationship, sexuality and coping (Weber, 2005). I managed to interview a middle-class family, both parents being African Americans. The father was 36 years old, and the mother was 31 years old. The couple has two girls aged 9 and four years.
The father is employed in a nearby construction company as a site supervisor and mother is a business executive at a local bank. They find comfort in their profession because they can comfortably support the family and cater to all their needs. However, both parents spend a significant amount of time at work more than being home. Children are left under the care of a ho...