Family Health Assessment Creative Writing Example

Families have become the center stage in the provision healthcare and promotion of health practices. The aim of these emerging family involvements is to make sure the whole family lives a healthy life beside the patient. The family strengths make sure the patient receive the best care after discharge. Additionally, the family is a great source to learn the culture and the value of the patient. Thus, family assessment helps the nurse not only improve his/her cultural competence but also help the whole family live a healthy life. Furthermore, the family is an integral part in helping the nurse offering a holistic care to the patient. Hence, family assessment is very essential tool for all nurses since it aims at understanding the patient better and improving the health standards of the whole family (Wright et al., 2012). The family health history also gives an insight on the vulnerability of the patient towards the genetic diseases which exist in the family such as diabetes 2 or obesity. Furthermore, the family structures and the role provide important information on how to formulate education plan for the patient. This also improves the trust and collaboration among the stakeholders involved in the patient (Weber et al., 2013) In my effort to have a clear compression on how the health assessment tool works in real life situation, I had the privilege to interview one family of Mr. and Mrs. K.

African American family

The family is keen in making sure their diet is healthy and important nutrients are included. This was necessitated when father of Mr. K was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 and obesity. The family physician advised the whole family to consider changing their diet and lifestyle. The family mainly consumes rice, peas, vegetables, fruits, chicken, fish, beef, pasta and bread. The family has not suffered any malnutrition cases. However, the family before was not keen on the fluid intake especially water. They only drink water when they were thirsty .As a result, constipation was a common problem for the family (Weber et al., 2013). The family claims the tap water is not clean and the family resulted in buying bottled water to reduce the chances of diarrhea which were rampant when the family members used to drink water straight from the tap. The parents always encourage their children to drink bottled water daily. They have no problems with urinary retention and constipation at the moment.
The children sleep 8 hours on average. However, the parents sleep on average of 5 hours on a daily basis. This is because sometimes they have to work late. They also keep checking on their children at night after every three hours at night just to make sure they are okay. Nobody in the family has sleeping disorders. They have regular sleep and they mostly rest after tiring day by watching television or listen to music. The family also gets time to play games such as chess or soccer to relax their mind especially on weekend when the whole family is mostly at home. Moreover, visiting extend family also is used by the family to break from the normal routine and which help them by making them feel relax.
There is family member who has experience any loss of memory. However, the children experience problems when they moved to the new school. The teachers claim the students had hard time in thinking and expressing themselves clearly. However, after intensive consultation and assessment of the children, it was discovered that they suffer from fear of the new environment. Fortunately, after a month in the school, they started coping and made new friends. Their thinking capacity was also back to normal. They have been able to grasp what they been taught in class and apply them in life without a problem. Furthermore, the family senses are normal. There are no incidences reported of difficulty in tasting, feeling, seeing and hearing.
According to Mr. and Mrs. K, their family including the extended has been their source of encouragement and support for the challenges in life. They talk openly on things which affect them during meals time and they also text each other frequently during the day. The conflict in the family are solved through dialogue or inviting a third member from the extend family to act as an arbitrator. However, their children have hard time in communicating their problems especially when they reached the adolescence age. Mr. and Mrs. K have taken the initiative of talking to their children and try to convince them that it is okay to talk to them. They don’t suffer from self esteem but they feel powerless and fear in communication their person problem to their parents.
The members have a healthy sexual life and they have not experience any sexual dysfunction. However, Mrs. K had miscarriage when they first tried to have children. This affected her both physical and emotionally. She felt she was not a full woman and this had affected her self esteem. However, they sought medical attention and information on how to avoid another miscarriage. This helped the family a lot since they have not experience any other sexual dysfunction again. Additionally, the family members are satisfied with their sexuality (Weber et al., 2013).

Wellness nursing diagnoses

Health seeking behaviors
Proper nutrition
The family is keen on healthy eating. The family advocates for proper diet which is well balance with all the nutrition content which the body needs. Junk food is highly discouraged. Additionally, after experiencing diarrheas and constipation for a while due to drinking contaminated water, the family resulted to drink clean bottled water. This has helped the family living a healthy life and reduces the chances of getting affected by water borne diseases. Unhygienic behaviors are highly discouraged in this family. All the family members are keen on their hygiene and living a healthy life (Weber et al., 2013).

Conclusion

Family assessment is an important exercise which every nurse should be competent in. This is because it helps the nurse to understand the dynamic and the diversity of the family. Additionally, it helps the nurses in designing a holistic care to the patient without putting burden to the family members. It informs the nurse which family practices could jeopardize the success of health care plan and which will support the plan.

Reference

AAP. (2015). Family Health History. Retrieved from http://www.geneticsinprimarycare.org/YourPractice/Family-Health-History/Pages/Family-Health-History.aspx
Gordon. (2014). NANDA/Gordon. Retrieved from http://www.sonoma.edu/users/k/koshar/n340/n345_NANDA.html
Kaakinen, J. R., Coehlo, D. P., Steele, R., Tabacco, A., & Hanson, S. M. H. (2014). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. FA Davis.
Weber, J. R., & Kelley, J. H. (2013). Health assessment in nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Wright, L. M., & Leahey, M. (2012). Nurses and families: A guide to family assessment and intervention. FA Davis.