Family Strength Assessment in Nursing Practice: Impact on Patient Recovery

This post discusses the importance of family strength assessment in nursing practice and its impact on patient recovery. It provides examples from PEP and supporting research evidence. The post also discusses the Australian Family Strength Nursing Assessment tool (AFSNA) and how it can be used to identify family strengths. The importance of good communication skills and application of strength based elements in nursing care is also highlighted.

Running heading: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1NURSING
Family strength assessment is integral for nursing practice to engage in problem oriented
care. It is a type of strength based approach to care that focus on assessing values and strength of
family to promote health of patients. Nurses who have knowledge regarding family strength
assessment are able to use the information to optimize family functioning and increase support
for the individual patient. Another advantage of focusing on family strength assessment is that it
enables nurses to provide culturally competent and holistic care (Sittner, Hudson and Defrain
2007). This post gives more detailed understanding regarding the impact of family strength
assessment and its impact on family health by giving examples from PEP and supporting the
argument with research evidence.
The main goal of family strength assessment is to identify elements in the family that
could optimize their function and develop skills to manage illness and disease of other family
members. From my own practice experience, I can say that focusing on family strength can
promote recovery and improve clinical outcomes of patient. Family assessment is the process
that that is in direct alignment with the principles of strength based nursing care (SBNC)
principles. SBNC is a both a philosophy and value-driven approach where the principles of
patient-centered care, empowerment and relational care is applied to promote health and well-
being (Gottlieb, 2014). Family functioning is promoted in this approach with the belief that all
family have some strengths and they can use those strength to meet their basic needs, achieve
their goals and promote recovery of family members (Walsh, 2015). Assessment of problems in
a patient is not the first step towards family-professional interaction. Instead, the process starts
with communicating with family members of the patient to understand how they have managed
problems in the family so far. This process has helped me to identify resource that can act as
building blocks and use them as tool to optimize care.

2NURSING
Family strength assessment can be done by nurse with the use of structured tools or with
the application of strength based elements in patient care. However, for nurses who need
assistance in conducting family strength assessment, the Australian Family Strength Nursing
Assessment tool (AFSNA) can be a useful tool to identify eight qualities of strong Australian.
The eight quality elements of strong family include communication, togetherness, affection,
sharing activities, support, acceptance, commitment and resilience (Barnes & Rowe, 2013).
During my placement in a mental health unit of Royal Prince Alphred Hospital, I was able to use
AFSNA to identify strength in patient families and implement appropriate care plan for the
recovery of patient. For example, during my placement, I was assigned to take care of a 35 year
old patient named Tracy (fictional name), who was admitted to the hospital following episodes
of depression and social isolation. The patient was avoiding interaction with anyone and it was
difficult to understand the cause behind depression in patient. Hence, I decided to interact with
Tracy’s husband to understand the ways to manage the condition of Tracy. The positive thing
about interaction between Tracy’s husband was that I found that he was very much interested in
providing any kind of support to manage her illness. He was very supportive and he was the only
person whom Tracy trusted and interacted with without any difficulty. Therefore, by engaging in
regular meeting with Tracy’s husband, it became possible to identify cause behind depression
and identify activities or motivations that would distract Tracy from her life stressors. Regular
cues and ideas from Tracy’s husband helped me to identify appropriate care plan for Tracy’s
recovery and empathy and affection of her husband helped Tracy to overcome the crisis. Ellis et
al. (2016) also supports the fact that developing care plans based on family strengths can
improve coping skills, self-efficacy and clinical skills of patient.

3NURSING
The advantage of using AFSNA tool in improving clinical outcome of patient is also
understood from another of my placement experience. Philips (fictional name), a 11 year old
patient came to the mental health unit after diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Her mother complained regarding poor grades and poor concentration of her son. She was very
worried regarding the future of her son. I used the questions from the AFSNA guide to
understand family strength elements like togetherness and sharing activities. For example, ‘I
asked Philips’s mother how often she spend time with her son?. She replied that she meets him
only in the evening as she has work commitments. To assess their togetherness, I asked ‘Do you
see Philips happy when you share activities together’. Using this cues, I convinced her mother
that Philips need some support from her so that he can manage the crisis in his life. I also gave
her education regarding some activities to increase the attention level of Philips. Smith, Swallow
and Coyne (2015) supports that actively involving parents in decision making is important
particularly in long-term conditions so that day-to-management of care becomes easier.
Hence, based on my experience with two patients, I can say that AFSNA tool is effective
in taking appropriate feedback and vital patient information and using those elements to plan and
resolve patient issues. Furthermore, good communication skills and application of strength based
elements helped me to support families to identify their strength and use them (Thomlison
2015). Bidrectional interaction between nurse-patient relationship and well-being outcome is
also understood from the fact that negotiation with Philips mother helped in planning effective
activities to increase concentration and promote well-being of Philips. In the case of Tracy,
involvement of Tracy’s husband in the care process through regular meeting helped Tracy to
accept the treatment and comply with them to achieve positive mental health outcomes.

4NURSING
References:
Barnes, M., & Rowe, J. (2013). Child, youth and family health: Strengthening communities.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Ellis, L., Gergen, J., Wohlgemuth, L., Nolan, M.T. and Aslakson, R., 2016. Empowering the
“cheerers”: role of surgical intensive care unit nurses in enhancing family resilience. American
Journal of Critical Care, 25(1), pp.39-45.
Gottlieb, L.N., 2014. CE: Strengths-based nursing. AJN The American Journal of
Nursing, 114(8), pp.24-32.
Sittner, B.J., Hudson, D.B. and Defrain, J., 2007. Using the concept of family strengths to
enhance nursing care. MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 32(6), pp.353-
357.
Smith, J., Swallow, V. and Coyne, I., 2015. Involving parents in managing their child's long-term
condition—A concept synthesis of family-centered care and partnership-in-care. Journal of
pediatric nursing, 30(1), pp.143-159.
Thomlison, B., 2015. Family assessment handbook: An introductory practice guide to family
assessment. Nelson Education.
Walsh, F., 2015. Strengthening family resilience. Guilford Publications.