health care professionals.
The concept of family is extremely important when considering the health promotion of an individual. Families help patients to adhere to medical advice, by monitoring and encouraging them to exercise and listen to the instruction of health care professionals. The family or patient’s support is the basic unit and accessible part of the community. Nurses need to take into consideration during assessments and collecting data on family risk factors, diseases, illnesses, and family influences on each member that can affect the patient’s decision-making process. Prevention of diseases and intervention through the family will promote good health (Green, 2018). Such health promotion and education are specific and adapted for a family and therefore beneficial by reducing both the morbidity, hospital visits and the economic costs of the disease when seeking specialized medical intervention through referrals as well as to empower patients and family to take control to improve their health care. A partnership between a family and their healthcare provider is characterized as family-centered care. For instance, teaching the consequences of drinking alcohol to a parent and what are the repercussions if they drink too much as well as what illness it can cause; like cirrhosis.
In order to determine the best health promotion strategy for a patient, it is necessary to asses and understand his/her physical and social environment, individual biological and genetic influences on the family, determinants of health (smoker/drugs), family behavior and dynamics within the particular family, the community’s culture and believes, background, language, interests and demographics. After data is collected, nurses can identify the problem and create health promotion and education information base on the needs of the patient and family, a Family-Centered-Care (Green, 2018). This will also allow learning strategies that may include the family, following their learning style, emotional support for the family’s beliefs, needs, preferences, knowledge, experiences, values and their own pattern of daily living conditions (Green, 2018). In this way, the information provided will promote adherence to treatments and self-control over diseases, better comprehension and changing towards a positive health promotion behavior (Whitney, 2018). Nurses must be compassionate, empathic, and responsive to the families especially in difficult moments.
Reference
Green, Sue Z. (2018). Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum, Understanding Families and Health Promotion. Chp 4. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/#/chapter/2
Whitney, S. (2018). Teaching and Learning Styles. In Grand Canyon University (Ed) Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/#/chapter/4
