Family Strength Assessment in Nursing Practice: Impact on Patient Recovery

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.