Upon completion of the interview, write a 750-1,000-word paper. Analyze your assessment findings. Submit your questionnaire as an appendix with your assignment. Include the following in your paper: Describe the family structure. Include individuals and any relevant attributes defining the family composition, race/ethnicity, social class, spirituality, and environment. Summarize the overall health behaviors of the family. Describe the current health of the family. Based on your findings, describe at least two of the functional health pattern strengths noted in the findings. Discuss three areas in which health problems or barriers to health were identified. Describe how family systems theory can be applied to solicit changes in family members that, in turn, initiate positive changes to the overall family functions over time.

Assessing a family’s health is so essential in recommending a healthcare plan for the family. Nurses and other caregivers can use the information collected during the family health assessment process to provide quality health services to families suffering from certain diseases (Kaakinen et al., 2018). For many years, caregivers and nurses have used the assessment principle known as Gordon’s functional health patterns to conduct the process.

The policy mainly focuses on 11 patterns, which include sexuality, self-perception, sleep, nutrition, cognitive, role relationship, health perception/values, exercise, elimination, sensory-perception, and coping. The paper herein analyses and summarizes the data gathered when conducting family health assessment to John Kelly’s family.

Family Structure

Kelly’s family is a middle-class household consist of six individuals. They include the parents, John Kelly aged 45 years and Nina Kelly aged 40 years. The children are Michael Kelly aged 24 years, Kate Kelly aged 20 years, Sharon Kelly aged 16 years, and Joseph Kelly aged 10 years. The family lives in a four-bedroom house, which Kelly inherited from his father. The home is located in Spokane, Washington State. Kelly and his family are Christian believers who apply most of the Christian teachings in their daily activities. They attend bible study sessions every Saturday evening and go to church every Sunday.

In terms of health, Kelly is suffering from blood pressure, and his son Michael is obese. Also, they rarely go for their medical checkups due to financial constraints. Family structure can be used to understand the duties, roles, and regulations governing a given family. According to Frey (2017), fathers are the overall decision-makers in most families around the world. However, in Kelly’s family, both Kelly and his wife are responsible for making the family’s decisions.

Overall Health Behaviors and the Current Health Status of the Family

Kelly’s family is not conscious when it comes to health matters. For example, Kelly admitted that they rarely workout to keep their body fit during the interview. Also, most of the Kelly family members like fast foods. For example, Kate eats Pizza four times a week for supper. On the other hand, Joseph eats sandwiches and chocolates every day. In other words, Kelly and his family do not observe a balanced diet. Also, Kelly and his wife rarely talk to their children about sexual matters due to their strong Christianity believes. They also have poor stress management skills. Most of the people in Kelly’s family are at risk of suffering heart conditions, high blood pressure, and stroke.

For example, Kelly is suffering from high blood pressure due to his body size. He is 5.7 ft and weighs almost 125 Kgs. Michael, the family’s oldest son, is obese and thus, can suffer cancer or heart conditions, also due to his body weight. He is 5.6 ft tall and weighs 96 Kgs. However, the women in this family are physiologically healthy and do not have any signs of a physical illness. Yet, they do not know how to cope with stress. For example, Kate almost committed suicide at the age of 16 because her ex-boyfriend told her that she was not pretty. Nina, on the other hand, always throws things away when stressed.

Functional Health Pattern

The overall health behaviors of this family pose health risks to its members. For example, the lack of proper sexual education among children can cause a lot of physical and psychological problems if not changed. For instance, Kate tried to end her life after breaking up with her boyfriend when she was 16 because she lacked proper sexual education. Another barrier to health is the lack of stress management skills. Poor stress management can lead to the deterioration of a person’ both physical and mental health (Wu et al., 2019). The parents should visit a psychologist together with their children to learn about stress management. The barrier to fitness is lack of exercise.

Kelly and his family should frequently exercise to prevent diseases such as heart conditions. Though Kelly’s family has many obstacles to health, it has two functional health patterns which improve good health. First, all the family member sleep by 10:00 pm and wake up by 8:30 am. According to Mukherjee et al. (2015), quality sleep can improve a person’s productivity and concentration. The other strength is the bible study lessons. Annacontini (2019) mentions that Kelly’s family members can improve their cognitive ability by reading and memorizing verses.

Application of family systems theory

Dr. Murray Bowen created Order a similar paper