Family Nursing Interventions: What Families Say Makes a Difference

Within the nursing offamilies, assessment skills have become more and more sophisticated. However, our ability to intervene in relation to the family problems that are identified has lagged behind. There is growing awareness that it is time to attend to what we do that helps healfamily suffering. This article reports on the interventions that one group offamilies identified and described as making a difference that matters in living with a chronic condition. Thesefamilies experienced difficulty managing a member's chronic condition and sought assistance in an outpatient nursing clinic. The interventions were illuminated through a grounded theory study designed to explore both the process and outcomes of family nursing interventions. From the family perspective, the intervention process involved two stages: (a) creating the circumstancesfor change and (b) moving beyond and overcoming problems. Examples are given of specific interventions thatfamiliesfound useful within the intervention process.