Approaches to Family Nursing
The purpose of this paper is to discuss four types of approaches to family nursing. The four types of approaches are: Family as Context, Family as Client, Family as System, and Family as Component of Society (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Hanson, 2015). Each type will be addressed from clinical experience and observation of a family in a health crisis. The family chosen for this paper was a young pregnant mother, her spouse, and their parents. This was her first pregnancy and during her first trimester she was diagnosed with adrenal cancer.
Family as Context
The first approach to family nursing centers on the assessment and plan of care for this mother. In this approach the patient is foreground and the family is in the background (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Hanson, 2015). In this case the mother was the one in need of health care due to her cancer diagnosis. She had to decide to wait for cancer treatment until she had her child, or terminate the pregnancy to start treatment right away. Her spouse and their parents were involved in this very difficult and …show more content…
The nurse focuses mainly on the interactions between family members (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Hanson, 2015). At the first consult appointment with the couple and their parents it was very emotional. Almost everyone was crying and hugging each other for support. The whole situation was emotionally draining. The overall reactions from everyone helped bond them during this difficult time. As part of the health care team, we were offering emotional support and resources for counseling. Assessing the family's interactions, strengths, weaknesses, and overall relationship was key to facilitate the family's wellness and functioning (Svavarsdottir et al., 2015). The health care team can better care for the family focusing on the weaknesses and encouraging their