Examining Family Responses to Family Systems Nursing Interventions

Abstract

To add to the small, but growing, number of literature reviews of family interventions in health care, a systematic literature search of Family Systems Nursing intervention research resulted in the inclusion of 17 empirical research reports. Family Systems Nursing intervention research to date has primarily used qualitative methods and a few quasi-experimental designs using pre-post outcome measures. Families' responses to Family Systems Nursing interventions were categorized in this integrative review using the cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains of family functioning proposed by Wright and Leahey. Family response in the cognitive domain found improved understanding, capability, and enhanced coping. The affective response categories showed caring more about each other and the family, improved family emotional well-being, and improved individual emotional well-being. Finally, family responses in the behavioral domain comprised caring more for each other and the family, improvement in interactions within and outside family, and healthier individual behavior. These findings may guide the design of future family nursing intervention research and the selection of family outcome measures to examine the usefulness of Family Systems Nursing interventions. More intervention research using experimental and quasi-experimental designs is needed to strengthen the evidence for Family Systems Nursing practice.

Responses after participating in Family Health Conversations in families with a family member who has suffered a stroke: A mixed methods research study

“…An increased quality in family communications has also been found in other studies on family systems nursing interventions. [24] It is evident in the empirical integrated results and in line with the theoretical proposition that participating in the intervention had created a context for change for the families. Families in the intervention group had changed how they acted towards each other.…”

“…A change in the affective domain of family health was also found as they cared more about each other and the family. [24] Families' communications had in our study also improved; this may probably be one reason for their new ways of functioning and thinking. When participating in FamHC, an atmosphere was created for trust in which all family members dared to talk and in which multiple realities were accepted.…”

“…Other studies on family nursing interventions [60] have, however, showed such improvements. Moreover, participating in family systems nursing intervention [24] have shown improvements in individuals' emotional well-being in terms of bringing personal relief and experiencing positive feelings. To understand our results, it might be that individual health is not typically affected by participating in FamHC in such a short time span as only one month after completion of the intervention.…”

“…[24] Adding qualitative methods to a quasi-experimental design, normally built on only quantitative methods, can deepen understandings of the outcomes of an intervention [32] and several of the studies cited above used qualitative methods. However, the evaluation of complex interventions [33] such as FamHC may benefit from the use of mixed methods research providing evidence from various sources.…”

“…It has previously been shown that family systems nursing interventions can lead to family responses such as improved understanding and capability, enhanced coping, caring more about each other and the family, improved family and individual emotional well-being, improvement in interactions within and outside family, and healthier individual behaviour. [24] Empirical studies revealing effects and responses after participating in FamHC are, however, still scarce, but the intervention has started to be evaluated from various angles. [25][26][27][28][29] From these studies, FamHC has been described as a successful conversation with a possible working mechanism in which narrating, listening and reconsidering in interaction support family health.…”