The role of nurses concerning the family is critical to the support system that ensures holistic family care (Smolowitz et al., 2015). Family nurses take roles such as advocates and educators, facilitating, coordinating care, and emotional supporters. This paradigm shift in nursing and health allows families to move into healthcare settings so they can be reassured of quality care. Advocacy in nursing lies at the center of ensuring an improved transition and access to services due to the care coordination provided. The support that nurses offer ensures the family copes with the stressor through emotional support, which helps improve care through education. This discussion explores these significant nursing support roles in the wellness of family quality care.
A nurse advocates for the family in various ways, like facilitating communication between the family and the rest of the health team and translating technical and detailed medical information to simple layperson’s terms to achieve a full understanding of the care plan and appropriate articulation of family concerns. They also advocate for families to respect the rights of families and cultures to spirituality. In the instance of variation in the culture and religious beliefs of the family in some parts of the care plan, the nurse can work together with other healthcare team members to make replacements that will conform to the family values. Nurses are trained to respect, safeguard, and actualize the rights of the families at each point of their care process. This includes counseling with the family so that the family can get enough proper information regarding the patient’s condition and treatment. This would enable the family to make decisions based on informed choices.
Nurses provide information on health conditions, treatments, and preventive measures to afford families the necessary knowledge and make their own decisions on health. This may involve educating the family about the process of the disease, the likely causative factors, the signs and symptoms, management modalities, and lifestyle changes, among others. The education from nurses also greatly empowers a family to take control of their health. The families are better off actively participating in their health, courtesy of nurses, who impart knowledge and skills. Hence, better health results are realized. For example, educating families on the need for administration and even ensuring they partake in regular health screening will go a long way toward preventing diseases and detecting health problems early, translating into better health outcomes. Moreover, it reduces cases of chronic diseases since it instigates awareness among families to adopt healthy lifestyles, that is, proper nutrition and regular exercise to keep away such diseases while the family remains productive.
Coordination of care entails the organization and managed arrangement of healthcare services in such a way that they provide the family with integrated and not disjointed facilities. Coordination of care, on the other hand, is the process of family care with the help of working partnerships with other healthcare professionals (Sekse et al., 2018). These will include the physician, social workers, and therapists in developing and devising a united care plan according to the family’s needs. This coordination will ensure that all within the healthcare team are pulling toward common goals, ensuring smoothness and consistency in care delivery. Effective care coordination practice does benefit families in several ways. First, it helps streamline the healthcare process by reducing the family burden, as the family manages fewer appointments and services. This may help families who face either the cost or logistical challenge of hospice care and do without it. Second, care coordination ensures that all the different components in the care of a family are brought together, bringing about improved outcomes and quality of life for family members receiving the care. Generally speaking, the nurse plays a role in coordinating care for families, which is equivalent to ensuring the family receives support to carry on their health management.
Emotional support is part and parcel of the nurse’s role in supporting the family through health-challenging times. Nurses offer emotional support through active listening to families, empathy with the family’s experiences, and compassionate care (Noohi et al., 2016). For example, if a family member is very ill, the nurse may spend time talking and listening to family members, offering them reassurance and a comforting presence. Such emotional support can help these families feel understood and validated in their struggles, meaning that they could subsequently feel less lonely and, perhaps, benefit during periods of uncertainty and stress. Emotional support from the nurse will help family members relate healthily to these emotional changes, reducing potential negative consequences such as caregiver burnout or conflicts between family members.
In conclusion, all these multidimensional roles of the nurse toward supporting families further underline the essence of favorable health outcomes and the increased well-being of the family. Nurses work as advocates, educators, care coordinators, and emotional providers of the patient; they play equally paramount roles in giving holistic and patient-centered care. Through advocacy, the nurse will ensure that family rights are respected while ensuring they are well-informed to make informed decisions. Nursing education to families explaining the health condition, the treatment, and preventive care is useful for achieving good health outcomes. Coordination of care ensures families receive seamless and continuous care, whereas the emotional support offered by nurses helps the families withstand the challenges they face.
Noohi, E., Peyrovi, H., Goghary, Z. I., & Kazemi, M. (2016). Perception of social support among family caregivers of vegetative patients: A qualitative study. Consciousness and Cognition, 41, 150-158.
Sekse, R. J. T., Hunskår, I., & Ellingsen, S. (2018). The nurse’s role in palliative care: A qualitative meta‐synthesis. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(1-2), e21-e38.
Smolowitz, J., Speakman, E., Wojnar, D., Whelan, E. M., Ulrich, S., Hayes, C., & Wood, L. (2015). Role of the registered nurse in primary health care: Meeting health care needs in the 21st century. Nursing Outlook, 63(2), 130-136.