The Family Health System as an Emerging Paradigmatic View for Nursing

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomena of family health from a nursing perspective by examining the view of health in the discipline of nursing, and the view of family health in multiple disciplines. A holistic definition of family health for nursing is proposed which includes five realms of family experience which make up the family health system. The proposed classification is offered as a beginning heuristic model to organize knowledge generation for use in the practice of family nursing.

Factors Affecting the Sense of Burden Felt by Family Members Caring for Patients With Mental Illness

“…It was also shown that nursing practice to increase the sense of purpose of family caregivers, which is one of the direct-impact factors, and to reduce the problems in the task execution skills of patients with mental illness, is effective as a means of easing the burden on the caregivers. Anderson and Tomlinson (1992) regarded the family as an important system in relation to health and showed the importance of promoting development processes, health processes, coping processes, interaction processes, and integration processes. Thus, on the basis of family systems theory, which is the framework of this research, family care from a standpoint that focuses on relationships and interactions within the family, in addition to, of course, performing assessments and care for the individual family members and integrating them, appeared to be essential to easing the sense of burden on caregivers.…”

‘Being appropriately unusual’: a challenge for nurses in health‐promoting conversations with families

“…Descriptions of the concept have often been delivered from a researcher's perspective, but Denham (1999, 149) has presented health in four ways from a family perspective: ‘the absence of illness or disease, the ability to actively engage in life, a balance among multiple family‐life dimensions and a holistic phenomena with physical, emotional, social, spiritual and ecological dimensions’. Anderson and Tomlinson's (1992) attempt to develop a model of family health for research has many similarities with that of Denham (1999, 2003): both have a holistic view of health and enhance both wellness and illness in interaction with the environment. Anderson and Tomlinson's (1992) model includes five realms: interactive, developmental, coping, integrity and health processes.…”

“…Family health is more than the sum of the individual's health and should embrace a holistic view, including both health and illness variables (Anderson and Tomlinson 1992). Denham (2003) has proposed a model for family health, which is in line with our underlying assumptions for health‐promoting conversations.…”

Health Visitors as Family Nurses: A Discussion of Research, Policy and Practice in the United Kingdom

“…In relation to family health, Anderson and Tomlinson (1992) argued that there is confusion in the specification of the unit of care and unit of analysis based on a paradigmatic and conceptual ambiguity within nursing. A similar problem is evident in the relevant family nursing literature, where terms like family-centered, family-focused, or family as context are used interchangeably (Hanson & Boyd, 1996).…”