Family nursing: theory-anemic, nursing theory-deprived

Family interviews as a method for family research

AIM

This paper is a description of the experience of conducting family interviews in a study to come to understand from families their experience of the hospitalization of a critically ill family member.

BACKGROUND

Traditional family research has been done quantitatively, with a focus on the needs of individual family members rather than the family as a whole. The limited amount of qualitative family research has been done primarily by interviewing individual family members rather than the family as a group.

METHOD

The original study was conducted within a framework of phenomenology and 11 families, for a total of 41 individuals, were interviewed about their experiences. Family groups from two to seven members, some including adolescents and young adults, participated in semi-structured interviews.

FINDINGS

Findings revealed that gathering families together, even early in the critical illness experience, is not only feasible but beneficial for them and opens the door to dialogues that have a therapeutic effect on the family and help them manage the critical illness experience. Although daunting and challenging, family interviews are feasible and provide rich family-level data that contribute knowledge to family science and family caring. Strategies for family recruitment, conduct of family interviews and family-level data analysis are presented.

CONCLUSION

Families want to tell their stories and clearly have a need for nurses to develop relationships with them while caring for their ill loved ones. Family interviews both affirm the family and give nurses greater understanding of family issues, concerns and meanings.

Being family: the family experience when an adult member is hospitalized with a critical illness

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand and interpret the 'family experience' with an adult member hospitalized with a critical illness.

BACKGROUND

Nursing practice in critical care settings has traditionally focused on individual patient needs with only tangential recognition of family needs. Investigation to describe the family experience to illuminate family nursing practice has been lacking. The majority of studies thus far related to critical illness and family are quantitative and reveal constraints to family care and problematic nurse-family interactions. The logical next step is a new kind of family research to enhance nursing of the family as a whole.

DESIGN

Family systems theory and existential phenomenology provided the frameworks guiding the study.

METHODS

Semi-structured 'family as a group' interviews were performed with 11 families. Data were analysed using Van Manen's hermeneutic method. Rigor was addressed with trustworthiness criteria.

RESULTS

The family experience was analysed within Van Manen's framework of lived space, lived relation, lived body and lived time. A constitutive pattern of being family was revealed.

CONCLUSIONS

Being family bonds families and makes them exceedingly strong during the critical illness experience. Being a family unit is what gives most families the ability to endure the emotional upheaval and suffering that come with the critical illness experience.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Nurses have profound power to help families bear this experience. Family caring is enhanced with the presence of nurses who recognize the importance of 'Being Family' for the family, acknowledge the significance of the nurse-family relationship and act on a commitment to be with and for the family.

Looking at families in nursing research: strategies for study design

Pediatric nurses have identified the importance of studying children within the context of their families. There have been calls for attention to the family as the focus of study and unit of analysis in nursing research. One of the most important strategies for designing a study that keeps the focus on the family is the maintenance of study integrity. All the strategic choices made by the researcher when developing the research design need to reflect the theoretical premises on which the study is built. Throughout the study design, components of well-constructed family research will demonstrate consistency with the overall conceptual framework.