¶ … Family in Health of Our Society The Family System as a Tool to Promote Health

Family is vital to the health and well being of our society. Only recently have researchers and healthcare providers began realizing that families work as a system to help promote health among family members. Families are more a whole than the sum of individual parts (Friedman, Bowden & Jones, 2003). Thus what affects one family member will ultimately affect others. The health or behaviors of one family member may directly or indirectly affect the health and well being of other family members.

Because families are more widely recognized as systems that can create a healthy or unhealthy environment, nursing researchers are suggesting a more integrative and holistic approach to care that focuses on families as system. Integrative practice suggests that nurse practitioners consider families as systems and work with families in this regard to help promote the health and well being of all members (Denham, 2003). In the past health care services have addressed or focused on the needs of individuals rather than the needs of families and family systems, in essence ignoring the "processes associated with family life related to health outcomes" (Denham, 2003: 143). This unfortunately leads to substandard care that doesn't address the needs of family members, who can contribute significantly to the health and well being of one another.

A model of health care that promotes the interest of the family system should provide a framework enabling family members to exchange ideas with nursing staff and various other health professionals, should provide methods for understanding family uniqueness and commonalities and should incorporate family diversity and practitioner diversity into family care (Denham, 2003: 145). Such a system would allow more...

Currently trends in family nurses have included diversifying nursing practice, increasing research into family systems and care and increasing family content within academic nursing environments (Wright & Leahey, 1990).
Family centered care is achieving more attention as nurses continue to uncover new ways to address the needs of families. In the past families have largely been ignored in favor of more individual oriented care, however this is changing as researchers begin examining family interactions and their effects on family health and family care (Wright & Leahey, 1990). This change is positive in nature, promoting better relationships between families and health care providers and promoting better understanding of family care.

Family Concept of Nursing Practice

Within my area of nursing practice, as an RN clinical educator at a large hospital, the family concept incorporates intimate family members and friends and anyone one else directly involved in patient care. This idea corresponds to the notion that family members are part of a system of complex interactions and adaptations. However within my field there is still a strong pattern of caring for individuals as parts of a whole without consideration to familial factors that may contribute to a family members health and well being. The family systems concept however is forcing nursing coordinators and trainers including in my field to review their notions of family and redesign care that is more focused on the health and well being of a family as a whole rather than an individual member. This requires more collaboration…