Family Assessment Assignment

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Family Assessment Assignment

The purpose of this paper is to present a family assessment. Community health nurses
work with individual families and with families as an aggregate within the population (Clark, 2003). Several areas will be presented such as biophysical, psychological, physical environmental, sociocultural, behavioral and health system considerations. The data obtained during family health assessment enable the nurse to make informed decisions about the health care needs of families (Clark).
Biophysical Considerations

On the maternal side, this family has one living eighty five year old male and one living seventy seven year old female. Two of the paternal members are deceased at the age of forty and eighty-eight. There is one living fifty-three year old male and one living forty-eight year old female. This couple has three children, two males, age twenty and fifteen, and a female age eighteen. All of the above family members have accomplished age-appropriate developmental tasks. The younger male has a learning disability which does cause some excess stress in the family. This is an example of an extended family and also the dual-earner family. This family consists of two working parents with children and also includes a kin network which provides mutual support for the family (Clark, 2003).
The younger family members are currently healthy and are not being treated for any health conditions. The eighty-five year old male is currently undergoing treatment for colon-rectal cancer. This treatment consists of weekly visits to a doctor’s office for chemotherapy. There is a family history of genetic pre-disposition to cancer as his mother had this illness also.


Psychological Considerations
The typical mode of communication in the family is verbal. The family uses the switchboard pattern, in which all members have reciprocal communication. A successful pattern of communication is the “switchboard”...