The instructor asked me to carry out a Family health assessment (a common assignment in nursing): What is it and how is it carried out?
Nursing is a broad program with a focus being on the health and wellbeing of society. As a nursing student, you will encounter many tasks all meant to equip you with the knowledge and skills to become a better nurse. An example of such an assignment is the family health assessment which is a very common assignment in the nursing field. But what is it all about?
In this article, we will focus on defining what family health assessment is and how it is carried out. This will ensure that next time your instructor assigns a task of the same kind, you will tackle it with ease. Also, if you are still confused about where to start any of your nursing assignments, ask for a nursing essay help or buy cheap custom nursing papers from Mycourseworkhelp.com essay writing services.
Definition: Family health assessment is the process of gathering information from a given family concerning their health promotion and disease prevention activities. The information collected during the assessment is analyzed and helps in administering care or nursing diagnosis. According to Marjorie Gordon 1987, there are eleven functional health patterns that should guide you in establishing a comprehensive database with all the data about the family. They include:
1.Health perception and health management pattern. Their understanding on health seeking behaviours.
2.Nutritional pattern. The kind of diet the family feeds on.
3.Sleep/ rest pattern. Focus is on the family’s sleep/ rest pattern.
4.Cognitive/ perceptual pattern, Focus is on self-awareness and self esteem.
5.Elimination pattern. Description of the family’s elimination habit.
6.Self-perception pattern. How individual members and family at large perceive themselves.
7.Relationship/role pattern. The focus is on the role of each family member.
8.Sexuality/reproductive pattern. Information on sexuality.
9.Value /belief pattern. What the family believes in, the culture.
10.Coping/ stress tolerance pattern. The focus is on the family handle with stress
11.Activity and exercise. Focus is on daily activities, selfcare activities, leisure and exercise.
All this information is obtained to achieve one goal which is helping the family establish and reinforce its ability to solve its health-related issues and meet its health needs. This activity takes place in the following stages:
Plan for data collection
This is the first and very crucial step in family health assessment. You need to gather as much data as possible about the family’s structure and characteristics such as their way of life, cultural practices, socio-economic factors, health, and medical history as well as health habits and environmental factors.
When gathering this kind of information, the main sources of data is the primary source. The information is obtained directly from the member or members of the family under assessment. However, secondary sources of data are useful where the data is collected from friends, family records, neighbors, investigation reports, reference books, family members, etc. You can learn more about the sources of data for your assignment from Mycourseworkhelp.com where you get cheap custom nursing papers that meet your needs.
Methods of data collection and techniques
The method or strategy used in the collection of data depends on the individual family or the kind of information you are interested in. It is thus important to pick on the most effective methods. In most cases, since it is a face to face interaction, the most and commonly used methods are:
- Observation
- Questionnaires
- Conversations and discussions
- Listening
- Review of health records belonging to the family
- Examination
- Interviews
- Investigation
As you gather information using either of the above methods, you should maintain a positive code of conduct and do the following:
- Be systematic
- Don’t use force to get information
- Explain to the client why you want the information
- Maintain privacy
- Be courteous
- Create a n environment that the family will be comfortable and not feel embarrassed
- Keenly listen and sympathize with them
- Keep record of all the data
A quality assignment of this kind is highly dependent on your ability to select the methods that will enable you to collect all the information you need and data collection skills. These are skills you can learn from our essay writers who are research experts. Their experience in researching and writing quality, unique, and cheap custom nursing papers guarantees you excellent services.
Data analysis
After gathering all the relevant information, the next step should be to analyze the data. One reason as to why data analysis is important in research is to see how the data is related. Therefore, your analysis should help you categorize your data in either of the following groups:
- Health deficits. The gaps or failures in health maintenance and development. They are actual problems
- Health threats. They are possible problems
- Foreseeable crisis in the health of the family. They are potential problems.
Health threats are factors that predispose the family to diseases, retarded or poor growth, and also developmental and personality disorders. They include the large size of the family. Poor sanitation, unbalanced diet, illiteracy, poor environmental conditions, environmental pollution, and incomplete immunization of children.
A foreseeable crisis in the health of the family is anticipated events or moments of unusual need for adjustment in the life of an individual or family at large. This situation includes death, marriage, newborn, pregnancy, change of residence, or job as well as stages of development among other situations. Sometimes getting time to do all the data collecting, analyzing can be difficult or poorly done if done in haste. If your schedule does not accommodate your assignment, asocial life, and other important activities, you are welcome to place your order for a cheap custom nursing essay from Mycourseworkhelp.com essay writing company
Family profile and diagnosis
During the assessment process, it is also crucial that you concentrate on the family profile. As you do this, be sure to give a brief description of the family organization and its features
- The culture and life cycle of the family
- Environmental factors surrounding the family
- Family’s health and medical history
- The socioeconomic conditions of the family
On the other hand, the diagnosis profile refers to the written records about the family health issues/problems evaluated from the results of the analysed data.
Conclusion
Nursing assignments are generally challenging and successfully completing a nursing program deserves a celebration. Our writers are committed to helping with all your assignments to make sure you perform excellently and also graduate on time. Anytime you need to hire an essay writer or cheap custom nursing essay always remember Mycourseworkhelp.com. For more on how to complete your nursing assignments effectively, sign up at our website to access all the guides.