Family Health Assessment

As a nurse, it is important to remember the family has an important role in the paradigm of health promotion for the patient. The roles in which the family plays in assisting the patient and providing care are crucial to the health of the patient and the well being of the family as a whole. One tool to assess not only a patient and their views on different aspects of health, but an entire family or even community is Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns. This assessment tool incorporates eleven topics of health patterns. Health patterns of families evolve and are influenced from environmental interaction, developmental, cultural, biological, social, and spiritual factors. It is imperative to understand all patterns, as one pattern cannot be understood solely. The purpose of this paper is to review a questionnaire of the eleven topics of Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns from a family perspective. The family interviewed consists of two elderly wife and husband, whom two children have families. One family consists of two parents that just welcomed a third baby into the world, with the oldest child being 5 and the other family a young couple with no children. The first topic of Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns is values and health perception. Health perception describes the family’s perceived pattern of health and how their health is being managed. The family members all came to the consensus that they are all in full control of their own health. It is their own responsibility to control their eating habits, exercise habits, alcohol and tobacco intake, etc. They believe they have access to information they have the curiosity to question, and the ability to call the doctor, dentist, or any other healthcare provider if necessary. The next topic is nutrition. The family interviewed admitted their daily intake of fruit and vegetables is not always as much as it should be. Although, there are times where when the family is using a juicer to encorporate fruits and

References: Gordon, M. (2012). Gordon’s Health Patterns. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/38779941/Gordon-s-Health-Assessment on November 24, 2012 Weber, J. (2005). Nursing Diagnosis (Wellness, Risk, and Actual) Grouped according to Funtional Health Patterns. Retrieved from http://jxzy.smu.edu.cn/jkpg/UploadFiles/file/TF_06928152357_nursing%20diagnoses%20grouped%20by%20functional%20health%20patterns.pdf on November 25, 2012