Family History and its Genogram

GENOGRAM

Genogram Family History Assignment

A genogram is a useful chart for depicting family relations and their intricacies with symbols and notations. It provides a clear picture to the professionals for determining issues and the prospect of genetic illnesses being carried forward to the index person. This paper aims at exploring my own family’s multigenerational, multicultural, socio-political, and health status context. Our family lives in the US, and marriages have taken place within the same cultures.

The symbolic denotation of the genogram has been presented below for a clear understanding of the three generations.

Image 1: Genogram of a US Family

Image is taken from Edraw Max (n.a.)

Considering that the index person is to be seen in a primary care visit, the influences of his relationships, health history, lifestyle, culture, and environmental factors would be examined. The focused family genogram interview and the following information are gathered for a detailed explanation of each individual’s age, family relations, and health status.

· There are a father and mother in the immediate family, but the mother was deceased at 35 as she had a mental illness, like severe depression. Mother and father were separated, in fact, but not legally separated since they lived in separate cities.

· Father has a health problem since he has asthma and had been a smoker for many years. Mother had a psychological illness, depression.

· Among siblings, the index person, which is me, has one brother and two sisters.

· On the father’s side, they were three brothers and two sisters. One of the brothers was deceased at the age of 53. Another brother and a sister are smokers.

· On the mother’s side, there were two brothers and three sisters. One of the sisters, my mother, was deceased at 35, mainly due to depression. She was on medications since her separation and could not give proper attention to her kids. She had mood swings from being a loving mother to being a strict caregiver. One of her brothers is also a smoker.

· Paternal grandparents are both deceased. Grandfather was deceased at the age of 70, and grandmother was deceased at the age of 65. Both neither drank nor smoke and were healthy individuals. Their death was due to their age factor.

· Maternal grandparents are also no more. Grandfather was deceased at the age of 75, and grandmother at the age of 69. Both neither drank nor smoke and were healthy individuals. Their death was due to their age factor.

· Father’s siblings and mother’s siblings are not directly related to each other except that they were related to the marriage between father and mother. When the marriage partially broke due to separation, the uncles and aunts met in gathering to discuss the future ties of this social relation. However, matters did not resolve as expected, and the result was separation, after which the mother experienced depression and had mood swings. She was constantly on medications and was mostly sleeping as the pills had the purpose of calming her down.

· Gathering information about each family member revealed that:

· On the paternal side: One brother is deceased at the age of 53. Another brother is a smoker, age: 51. The third brother is my father suffering from asthma, age: 49. One sister is married, age 46. Another sister who is married to is of the age of 40. All of the siblings are married separately and have their own distinct families. No inter-family marriage is observed.

· On the maternal side: One brother, age 59, is a smoker. Another brother is of age 50 but does not smoke. The third sibling was my mother, who is now deceased when she was 35 due to psychological illness. Two more sisters are there as well, of the ages 33 and 32, both married. All of the maternal side siblings are married separately as well, and no inter-family marriage is observed.

Family Strengths

The family strengths could be identified as not signs of substance or drug abuse, except three people are smokers; two on the paternal side and one on the maternal side. There was no one in the three generations, from grandparents to the index person and siblings, who would have been observed in any serious illness such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autism, etc. Only the mother was a depressed patient since she had to undergo separation. The grandparents were all healthy individuals as there are no records of any of them involved in illegal drug or alcohol intake.

Another family strength is that both families have no inter-family marriages since research has indicated that such marriages end up in mentally disabled newborns (Saad et al., 2014). Therefore, it is the same reason that there are no signs of autism in both families. Since the marriages were also arranged, the couples were also from the same culture: White. If there had been inter-cultural marriages, there might have been possibilities of transferring or infiltration of any disease that might not have been in the family before. Different cultures have separate personality traits and health characteristics based on the regions they belong to (Schaller & Murray, 2008). Their backgrounds and prevalence of infectious diseases in a particular geographic location might penetrate families and their newborns when they are married in another culture. This situation is not observed in the focused genogram family here, which is a strength health-wise.

Family Stressors

Family stressors could be considered as the father’s illness of asthma and mother’s depression when she was alive. Since the mother had been deceased several years ago, her depression is no more a stressor for the rest of the family. It is inferred that when a depressed person lives within a family, they have to be treated with care. All the other family members have to be vigilant about her mood swings and her medicine timings so that her behavior should not worsen.

It has been reported widely that family members of a depressed person are always under constant stress since the depressed person communicate poorly with others, has his mood swings, is less friendly, is dependent on the rest of the members, and has, therefore, more friction within the family (Sobieraj et al., 1998). The same instances were experienced in the maternal family when she was separated and at her father’s home with her siblings. As her sisters were married, she had to stay with her brothers and their families. She could not get a chance to rent or buy herself a separate home or apartment since she was under constant depression and could not pursue a job. Her children were not grown up to be suitable for employment. Her brothers and their families were continuously taking care of her. Still, since she could not maintain positive relations with them, the social support was seen affected, and family members became vulnerable from her psychological illness. Soon after this condition, one and a half years, she was deceased. Bereavement left the rest of the family members in slight stress, and a higher illness rate since her sisters were also smokers. She was considered more prone to increased smoking, which could have consequences on her family.

On the paternal side, when my father’s sibling’s death was encountered, it is deduced that there would have been confusion, fear, and shock among the rest of the siblings in the family (Glatt, 2018). It could have been a major family stressor since the habits and changes in educational attitudes are also experienced after a close one’s sudden death. Relationships with peers could have been disturbed, and the overall arching effect of the personal stress would have increased. It has been investigated even further that different genders play important roles after the death of a sibling. Sisters are more responsible for taking care of the parents and helping them cope with the vacuum created after a sibling is lost, while brothers have to look after outside matters and be stronger in grieving matters.

Implications for Nurse Practitioner in Primary Care

In primary care, the nurse practitioners have to obtain health history for uncovering family patterns of illness. The generational family member exploration in the form of a genogram would be a valuable help for the nurse practitioner so that an acute care plan could be formulated. The nurse practitioner could interview, obtain a deeper understanding of the family stressors and how the other members helped cope with mental or physical disease. Family relations and overcoming the illness are highly interrelated since with family support, it would be easier to recover.