Nurse's Pocket Guide

eadiness for enhanced FAMILY PROCESSES
NURSING PRIORITY NO.2.To assist the family to improve interactions:
• Establish nurse-family relationship. Promotes a warm, caring
atmosphere in which family members can share thoughts,
ideas, and feelings openly and nonjudgmentally.
• Acknowledge realities, and possible difficulties, of individual situation.
Reinforces that some degree of conflict is to be expected
in family interactions that can be used to promote growth.
• Stress importance of continuous, open dialogue between
family members. Facilitates ongoing expression of open,
honest feelings and opinions and effective problem solving.
• Assist family to identify and encourage use of previously successful
coping behaviors. Promotes recognition of previous
successes and confidence in own abilities to learn and
improve family interactions.
• Acknowledge differences among family members with open
dialogue about how these differences have occurred. Conveys an
acceptance of these differences among individuals and helps
to look at how they can be used to strengthen the family.
• Identify effective parenting skills already being used and additional
ways of handling difficult behaviors. Allows individual
family members to realize that some of what has been done
already has been helpful and encourages them to learn new
skills to manage family interactions in a more effective
manner.
NURSING PRIORITY NO.3.To promote optimum well-being:
• Discuss and encourage use and participation in stress-management
techniques. Relaxation exercises, visualization, and
similar skills can be useful for promoting reduction of anxiety
and ability to manage stress that occurs in their lives.
• Encourage participation in learning role-reversal activities.
Helps individuals to gain insight and understanding of
other person’s feelings and perspective/point of view.
• Involve family members in setting goals and planning for the
future. When individuals are involved in the decision making,
they are more committed to carrying out a plan to
enhance family interactions as life goes on.
• Provide educational materials and information. Enhances
learning to assist in developing positive relationships
among family members.
• Assist family members to identify situations that may create
problems and lead to stress/anxiety. Thinking ahead can help
individuals anticipate helpful actions to handle/prevent
conflict and untoward consequences.
Information in brackets added by the authors to clarify and enhance
the use of nursing diagnoses.
306 Cultural Collaborative Community/Home Care