Showing papers in "Journal of Family Nursing in 2003"
TL;DR: The authors’ efforts to expand the family management style framework are reported and the revised framework described, based on a review of results from 46 studies focusing on family response to childhood chronic conditions, is described.
Abstract: This article reports the authors’ efforts to expand the family management style framework and describes the revised framework. Framework development was based on a review of results from 46 studies...
149 citations
TL;DR: The purpose of this literature review is to focus on therapeutic benefits of rituals and routines, stimulate conversation about their utility in nursing practice, and identify areas for research.
Abstract: Rituals and routines are widely discussed in the literature, but clear distinctions between them are seldom made. Rituals are most often described in terms of celebrations, traditions, religious observances, and symbolic events. Routines have been operationalized as behaviors closely linked with daily or regular activities pertinent to health. Family households are the primary places where families construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct rituals and routines. Support exists that links rituals and routines and health and illness. Both concepts involve multiple family members, are unique to family households, and seem to have a potential role in understandings about health potentials, illness risks, and chronic disease. Although some researchers have studied relationships between rituals or routines and health, nurses have completed few focused studies. The purpose of this literature review is to focus on therapeutic benefits of rituals and routines, stimulate conversation about their utility in nursing pra...
118 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated the relationship between parental perceptions of family functioning and school-aged siblings' social skills and problem behaviors and found that siblings of both groups demonstrate more social skills than problem behaviors.
Abstract: Although considerable research exists concerning families raising children with disabilities, relatively little work has examined the linkages between parent and sibling functioning. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to investigate the relationship between parental perceptions of family functioning and school-aged siblings' social skills and problem behaviors. A purposive sample of 78 sets of parents and their school-aged children participated. Half of the families were raising a child with a disability, and half of the families were not raising a child with a disability. Mothers and fathers completed the Porter-O'Leary Scale and Bloom's Family Functioning Measure. Teachers of the school-aged children completed a modification of the Gresham and Elliot Social Skills Rating System. Results indicated siblings of both groups demonstrate more social skills than problem behaviors, and siblings of children with disabilities were higher in cooperation and self-control than siblings of children without dis...
95 citations
TL;DR: Nurses are in an opportune position to educate families about dementia and caregiving and to ease the considerable challenges they face by providing more active support during the diagnosis and care process.
Abstract: Families caring for loved ones with dementia encounter multiple challenges. This study aimed to describe experiences of families seeking diagnosis and subsequent care and treatment for relatives with dementia. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, 14 family caregivers living in diverse areas of Kansas were interviewed regarding their experiences with dementia diagnosis and treatment. Initially uncertain about symptom interpretation, caregivers encountered marked delays in getting a diagnosis once they sought medical care. The diagnostic process often took several years and visits to numerous physicians, required considerable diligence, and ultimately resulted in feelings of mistrust toward the medical community. Caregivers described the physical and emotional strain of providing care, although support groups facilitated access to some educational and community resources. Nurses are in an opportune position to educate families about dementia and caregiving and to ease the considerable challenges they f...
75 citations
TL;DR: Shelter sites offer nurses a unique practice setting in which innovative interventions could be designed to promote the health and welfare of homeless women and their children.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experiences of homeless women with preschool children living in temporary shelters. Two shelters were selected as sites for data collection: a large metropolitan shelter housing up to 110 women and children and a small shelter providing housing for up to six families. Six focus groups were conducted that included a total of 29 participants. An interpretive phenomenological approach to data analysis was used. Themes and exemplars were identified. The interpretation of the data was brought back for group validation to assure the analysis presented an accurate reflection of the women’s voices. The findings from this study may be used to understand the experiences of homeless women with preschool children living in temporary shelters. Shelter sites offer nurses a unique practice setting in which innovative interventions could be designed to promote the health and welfare of homeless women and their children.
57 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the effects of ADHD on family life and described four family management styles exhibited in 15 families with children and adolescents with ADHD: the chaotic family, ADHD-controlled family, the surviving family, and the reinvested family.
Abstract: Although studies have demonstrated that family dysfunction is common in families with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children and that family members often suffer serious psychological effects, knowledge is lacking as to how to intervene to help these families manage the negative sequelae common to this disorder. This grounded theory study explored the effects of ADHD on family life and describes four family management styles exhibited in 15 families with children and adolescents with ADHD: the chaotic family, ADHD-controlled family, the surviving family, and the reinvested family. Descriptions and clinical recommendations are provided that addresses each family management type. By describing an initial typology of family management styles in this population, specific health-related issues and family assessment and intervention strategies can be more specifically directed.
56 citations
TL;DR: In this article, 46 siblings of children with disabilities responded verbally to a sentence-completion activity regarding coping responses to stressful situations of everyday life, and content analysis of these reports revealed coping responses according to four modes of reaction: proactive, interactive, internally reactive, and nonactive.
Abstract: Disability or chronic illness in a child creates stressors and new demands for all family members. Most research has focused on the parental perspective. There are little data from children themselves regarding daily coping responses related to living with a brother or sister with disabilities. In this study, 46 siblings of children with disabilities responded verbally to a sentence-completion activity regarding coping responses to stressful situations of everyday life. Content analysis of these reports revealed coping responses according to four categories of modes of reaction: proactive, interactive, internally reactive, and nonactive. Such recognition of siblings' daily coping responses is a first step in the promotion of positive adaptation and health.
52 citations
TL;DR: The results suggest that nursing services are needed after hospital discharge to support patients and family caregivers to manage the physical and emotional effects related to the cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Abstract: This study describes wives' self-reports of preparedness to care for their husbands' physical and emotional needs during the first 6 months after surgery for prostate cancer. The research questions addressed in this article are part of a larger study designed to test the effects of a standardized nursing intervention protocol (SNIP) on quality-of-life outcomes in men postprostatectomy. The Preparedness for Caregiving Scale (PCGS) was administered to wives, and an open-ended questionnaire solicited wives' descriptions of how they felt unprepared. The results suggest that nursing services are needed after hospital discharge to support patients and family caregivers to manage the physical and emotional effects related to the cancer diagnosis and treatment. The information gained can be used to refine a home-based nursing intervention to facilitate caregivers' preparedness to enhance patients' physical function and psychosocial adaptation, and ultimately the couple's quality of life.
51 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe perceptions of the division of diabetes self-and dependent care responsibility among young adolescents and their parents in two-parent families and to evaluate their own self-care and dependent care.
Abstract: The purposes of this study were to describe perceptions of the division of diabetes self- and dependent-care responsibility among young adolescents and their parents in two-parent families and to e...
45 citations
TL;DR: The overall finding was that parents weave remembered babies into the fabric of their families in multiple ways, and the following five themes of ways babies were remembered and incorporated into family life emerged from the data.
Abstract: During four qualitative research studies on pregnancy after perinatal loss, parents spoke of their dead babies and various ways they remembered them. Thus, they were a continued part of their lives...
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors suggest that exclusively attending to the verbal aspect of commendations may obscure equally meaningful ways that this intervention is actualized in therapeutic relationships.
Abstract: A therapeutic conversation of one family's experience in a traumatic house fire provides a springboard for discussion and illustrates the complexities of the family intervention known as a commenda...
TL;DR: Using Giddens’s structuration theory, the social and institutional conditions that shape special-needs parenting are examined and the implications for child-and family-friendly services and public policy and for social action are discussed.
Abstract: This article presents the findings of a secondary analysis of data from 30 interviews with parents who are raising children with chronic health conditions. Using Giddens’s structuration theory, the social and institutional conditions that shape special-needs parenting are examined. The conditions include professional attitudes, categorical allocation of services, lack of information, poor service coordination, school access challenges, societal perceptions of disability, responsibility debates, the feminization of family care giving, public reliance of family care, and the status of everyday parenting. Illustrations of how these issues affect families’everyday lives are provided along with a discussion of the implications for child-and family-friendly services and public policy and for social action.
TL;DR: The authors present a therapeutic conversation that occurred during two sessions in the Family Nursing Unit at the University of Calgary, with a woman experiencing “feeling overwhelmed and stressed” 6 weeks following the diagnosis of a myocardial infarction.
Abstract: The onset of life-threatening or chronic illness irrevocably changes the trajectory of the lives of individuals and their families. The beliefs held about the illness may affect the way individuals...
TL;DR: A shift from a strict adherence to role play as a way to teach and hone skills in working with families to more experiential and interactive exercises aimed at creating personal, meaningful, and realistic possibilities in learning is described.
Abstract: This article describes recent innovations and shifts in the family skills labs that have been offered since 1995 in the undergraduate family nursing curriculum at the University of Calgary. The aut...
TL;DR: In this paper, the principles of Bowen family systems theory and symptom formation are presented for understanding both family emotional and relationship processes and symptom development, and they are used to understand both relationship and emotional states.
Abstract: Bowen family systems theory is useful in understanding both family emotional and relationship processes and symptom formation. This article presents principles of Bowen family systems theory and sh...
TL;DR: Results support inclusion of self-perception and family functioning as important indicators of healthy sibling adjustment and suggest that siblings of children with diabetes were at risk for self-Perception problems in the areas of scholastic competence and global self-worth.
Abstract: This study examined self-perception and family functioning in healthy school-age siblings of children with asthma and diabetes. The 135 siblings completed the Family APGAR for Children and the Self-Perception Profile for Children. Results indicated that siblings of children with diabetes were at risk for self-perception problems in the areas of scholastic competence and global self-worth. Male sibling pairs in the diabetes group had lower self-perception scores than male pairs in the asthma group; whereas, female sibling pairs in the diabetes group had lower family functioning scores than female pairs in the asthma or healthy groups. For the siblings in the diabetes group, physical appearance, athletic competence, behavioral conduct, scholastic competence, and global self-worth were significantly associated with family functioning. Results support inclusion of self-perception and family functioning as important indicators of healthy sibling adjustment.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the relationship between differences in perceptions of mothers and fathers and self-concept and symptoms of depression, respectively, in 69 youth with epilepsy, using multiple regression to test whether the absolute difference scores between mothers' and fathers' perceptions of family adaptive resources, stigma, their children's negative coping behaviors, and their attitudes toward epilepsy were predictors of child selfconcept and depression after adjusting for epilepsy severity, children's attitudes towards epilepsy, and children's ratings of family adaptation.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore relationships between differences in perceptions of mothers and fathers and self-concept and symptoms of depression, respectively, in 69 youth with epilepsy. Multiple regression was used to test whether the absolute difference scores between mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of family adaptive resources, stigma, their children’s negative coping behaviors, and their attitudes toward epilepsy were predictors of child self-concept and depression after adjusting for epilepsy severity, children’s attitudes toward epilepsy, and children’s ratings of family adaptation. Only the mother-father differences related to children’s negative coping behaviors significantly predicted children’s self-concept and depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that differences in perceptions related to children may be more highly associated with the children’s outcomes than differences related to family characteristics or the children’s illness.
TL;DR: This article represents an attempt to understand the family's experience of having a child admitted to a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and to identify the meanings that the family attributes to the experience ofHaving a child in the PICU.
Abstract: This article represents an attempt to understand the family's experience of having a child admitted to a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and to identify the meanings that the family attributes to the experience of having a child in the PICU. The study used grounded theory as a research methodology. The data analysis gave meaning to the family's experience in the identification of the phenomenon of living with the possibility of losing a child, a phenomenon that involves family efforts to protect its members from family rupture or breakdown in the face of the life-threatening situation of the child's hospitalization. This phenomenon has relevancy in the daily practice of nursing as one explanation in understanding experiences of families in the PICU.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a series of tasks for family researchers to follow in planning their investigations that will help them avoid fundamental family measurement problems. But they do not address the problem of inappropriate applications of theory, fuzzy conceptualizations of constructs, poor decisions regarding units of measurement, and disconnections between what researchers want to measure and how they operationalize their variables of interest.
Abstract: Many of the persistent problems in family measurement are due to inappropriate applications of theory, fuzzy conceptualizations of constructs, poor decisions regarding units of measurement, and disconnections between what researchers want to measure and how they operationalize their variables of interest. This article contains a series of tasks for family researchers to follow in planning their investigations that will help them avoid fundamental family measurement problems.
TL;DR: The National Swedish Board of Health and Welfare expect social workers to put forward evidence for their practice and their decisions, and social workers felt threatened because they thought it gave no room for the humanistic value system.
Abstract: The term or phrase in fashion right now is evidence-based nursing, and that term seems to be spreading to many professions working with human beings. I have the privilege of being a board member of a Scandinavian scientific journal of social sciences, and I was told by the board members that the term evidence-based social work is about to be coined. They were very dubious about this term and about its implementation in social work. Because there are few links between the medical academy and social work, they were not aware of developments within medicine. They told me that the National Swedish Board of Health and Welfare expect social workers to put forward evidence for their practice and their decisions—for instance, is it better to place a child in a foster home compared with a group home, and what evidence do they have for such decisions? They felt threatened because they thought it gave no room for the humanistic value system. Thus, I believe we are confronted with a paradigm shift rather than just a development within one or two disciplines.
TL;DR: It has been 9 years since that editorial was published, and I am still eagerly making the same plea, where are the voices from practice who can describe innovative family nursing interventions?
Abstract: It has been 9 years since that editorial was published, and I am still eagerly making the same plea. Where are the voices from practice who can describe innovative family nursing interventions? An article by Donna Diers (1995) about clinical scholarship argued that whereas clinical research in nursing is a well-known and accepted form of scholarly activity, clinical scholarship offers an alternate way of extending knowledge about nursing practice. She conceptualized clinical scholarship in a practice profession as an intellectual activity that generates knowledge through the examination, analysis, and synthesis of practice, thereby creating new understanding for practice. This is a very different process than traditional forms of knowledge development in nursing research, which assert that one first needs to understand the phenomenon, describe it, and eventually design and test interventions for it. Clinical scholarship examines the practice itself, offers rich and thick descriptions of the practice, synthesizes practice knowledge, and even changes theory in response to this process. This is complicated, demanding scholarly work because it is discovery oriented and strives to account for a process
TL;DR: This discussion of the health issues related to perinatal substance misuse and the analysis from a critical social perspective are provided as an attempt to move communities away from rhetoric and toward development of effective, supportive interventions that meet the health and social needs of substance-using women and their children.
Abstract: The care of women and newborns with prenatal drug and alcohol exposure has been widely recognized as a significant health and social issue. There are wide variations in the values, beliefs, and knowledge regarding perinatal substance misuse in health and child welfare professionals and when contrasted to the field of sociology. Sociology and critical social theory provide an alternative to a traditional medical perspective by using a contextual lens through which to move beyond the “medicalization” of health and illness toward an understanding that considers the historical, political, and social interpretations of perinatal substance misuse. However, the medical and critical social perspectives are often seen as incommensurable. This discussion of the health issues related to perinatal substance misuse and the analysis from a critical social perspective are provided as an attempt to move communities away from rhetoric and toward development of effective, supportive interventions that meet the health and s...
TL;DR: Several approaches for analysis of multiple respondent data applicable to family research will be discussed, and one method of handling this assumption violation of sphericity will be addressed.
Abstract: The nature of family research is such that several family members may be asked to comment on identical items. The purpose of this article is to discuss several approaches for analysis of multiple r...