Why is the concept of family health important? Consider the various strategies for health promotion.

Why is the concept of family health important? Consider the various strategies for health promotion.

Most of us know we can reduce disease risk by eating a healthy diet, exercising, and not smoking. However, family health history strongly influences the risk of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or cancer. Assessments on family health history can help reduce the risk of developing health problems as they lead to early detection.

There are many different strategies that can be used to promote health. Some of the most common strategies include diet and exercise, social support, and tobacco cessation. It is important for the nurse to use the results of family health history to tailor a health promotion strategy that works best for the individual.

How does a nurse determine which strategy would best enable the targeted individuals to gain more control over, and improve, their health?

Family members share their genes, as well as their environment, lifestyles, and habits. Everyone can recognize traits such as curly hair, dimples, leanness, or athletic ability that run in their families. Nurses can determine the best approach by assessing risks for diseases such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, and heart diseases. Everyone’s family history of disease is different. The key features of a family history that may increase risk are:

  • Diseases that occur at an earlier age than expected (10 to 20 years before most people get the disease)
  • Disease in more than one close relative
  • Disease that does not usually affect a certain gender (for example, breast cancer in a male)
  • Certain combinations of diseases within a family (for example, breast and ovarian cancer, or heart disease and diabetes)

If your family has one or more of these features, your family history may hold important clues about your risk for disease. People with a family history of disease may have the most to gain from lifestyle changes and screening tests. You cannot change your genes, but you can change unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, inactivity, and poor eating habits.

In many cases, adopting a healthier lifestyle can reduce your risk for diseases that run in your family. Screening tests (such as mammograms and colorectal cancer screening) can detect diseases like cancer at an early stage, when they are most treatable. Screening tests can also detect disease risk factors like high cholesterol and high blood pressure, which can be treated to reduce the chances of getting a disease.

Why is the concept of family health important? Consider the various strategies for health promotion.
Why is the concept of family health important? Consider the various strategies for health promotion.

Family Health Promotion Strategies

Family health promotion strategies can be used to increase the health of family members by addressing individual needs. Family health promotion strategies may include providing education on lifestyle choices, promoting healthy eating habits, and helping families get active. Additionally, family health promotion may include creating and/or using resources such as community initiatives, health clubs, and websites.

Family health promotion examples

One of the most important ways to promote good health among families is through family health promotion. This means teaching children and their families how to maintain good health by making healthy choices. Additionally, family health promotion examples include:

  • Providing information about health risks and how to reduce them
  • Providing information about healthy eating patterns and how to make healthy choices
  • Providing information about ways to prevent childhood disease
  • Providing information about prenatal care and child birth
  • Providing information about mental health and substance abuse disorders
  • Providing information about safety issues, such as car safety, home safety, and chemical safety

Here’s an example of Family Health Assessment Paper Nursing Example [+Outline]

Learning About Your Family History

To learn about your family history:

  • Ask questions
  • Talk at family gatherings
  • Look at death certificates and family medical records, if possible

Collect information about your grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, siblings, and children. The type of information to collect includes:

  • Major medical conditions and causes of death
  • Age of disease onset and age at death
  • Ethnic background

Here’s an example of Family Health Assessment Part 2 Paper Example [+Guide]

Write down the information and share it with your doctor. Your doctor will:

  • Assess your disease risk based on your family history and other risk factors
  • Recommend lifestyle changes to help prevent disease
  • Prescribe screening tests to detect disease early

If your doctor notices a pattern of disease in your family, it may be a sign of an inherited form of disease that is passed on from generation to generation. Your doctor may refer you to a specialist who can help determine if you have an inherited form of disease.

Read more on Family Health Assessment Paper Nursing Example (Building a Health History)

Genetic testing may also help determine if you or your family members are at risk. Even with inherited forms of disease, steps can be taken to reduce your risk.

Check out 240+ Fresh Nursing Capstone Project Ideas [BSN & MSN]

How does a nurse determine which strategy would best enable the targeted individuals to gain more control over, and improve, their health?

Why is the concept of family health important?

Family is a concept that everyone understands. But, although it is a universal concept, the meaning is much more nuanced. How families are described may differ from individual to individual, and even between cultures, nations, or religions. The family as an integrated and functional unit of society has for a considerable period of time.

The UNESCO report stated that a family is a kinship unit and that even when its members do not share a common household, the unit may exist as a social reality. The description may be too broad to function as a factor in variables such as health for the purpose of defining a family unit for evaluation purposes.

Desai in 1994 redefined family as a unit of two or more persons united by marriage, blood, adoption, or consensual union, in general consulting a single household, interacting and communicating with each other.

Read more about Patient Falls Nursing Capstone Project Ideas & Topics with Prompts

Some examples of the various family structures that are common today are:

  • Nuclear Families: this is the traditional family structure consisting of a mother, father, and their biological or adopted children.
  • Single Parent Families: this structure involves either a mother or a father, but not both, raising their children on their own.
  • Childless Families: a married couple without children is often overlooked as a family, but more and more couples are making the decision not to have children.
  • Blended Families: blended families often include one or both parents being remarried, with children from both spouses’ previous marriages and children from the current marriage living in the same household as step- or half-siblings.

Traditional families once dominated many neighborhoods, today there are many ways to create a family that go beyond the traditional idea of a married mother and father raising children. Today, American society displays greater diversity, and many American households can be considered non-traditional under this definition. It is extremely important for nurses to acknowledge nontraditional family structures because understanding what constitutes “family” for a particular societal unit aids the nurse in assessment and intervention for family health promotion. Each family structure should be considered different and as such, the approach for health promotion has to be tailored to each individual family structure so that the information can be successfully received and processed leading to healthy behavioral change throughout the family unit.

Here’s How to write a Nursing Discussion Post [+Examples]

A family system approach to individuals and their families provides a means to better understand the interactions of a societal family unit (Huffman, Mathews, & Irving, 2017). Family systems communicate with even larger systems, such as the neighborhood or community, within and outside the system. According to the family systems theory of Bowen, each person or subsystem of a family unit or system affects other parts of the system; thus, a person cannot be examined in isolation from the family and consequently be understood through studying or recognizing the family’s complexity and emotions. While the degree of interdependence can vary from one family to another, all families have some level of interdependence among members. Bowen suggests that human beings may have evolved to be interdependent on family members to encourage cooperation among families required for things like shelter and security. But the distress one person feels can spread to family members in stressful situations, and the interdependence becomes more emotionally taxing than soothing.

In the family unit, there will always be one person who “absorbs” the burden of other family members ‘ emotions and this person is most likely to suffer as a result of things like depression, alcoholism, and physical illness. This shows the importance of the family system in understanding the root cause of illness and thereby treating it.

Find out more on The Nurse Educator as Leader, Change Agent, and Facilitator of Learning Discussion

Reference:

Sonawat R. Understanding families in India: A reflection of societal changes. Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa. 2001;17:177–86.

The Family and Family Structure Classification Redefined for the Current Times. J Family Med Prim Care.2013 Oct-Dec; 2(4): 306–310. doi: 10.4103/2249-4863.123774. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4649868/ Understanding Families and Health Promotion.

Read more on Case Study: A Middle-Aged Caucasian Man With Anxiety NURS 6630 [Solved]

Sue Z. Green. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/#/chapter/4

Does this Look Like Your Assignment? We Can do an Original Paper for you!

Have no Time to Write? Let a subject expert write your paper for You​