Evaluating well-being within a family represents a unique challenge since a nurse has to address the needs of every family member. Therefore, the choice of an assessment tool defines the success rate of the process to a vast extent. The difficulty of the task intensifies in case an ethnically diverse family has to be evaluated since the cultural characteristics of a family may hamper the process of evaluating if a nurse is unaware of them (Spector, 2017). Thus, the choice of assessment tools has to be very careful and well thought out. Due to the need to capture every single detail that may affect a family’s well-being, the use of interviews should be seen as the most effective method of assessment.
Psychological Assessment
Determining the presence of psychological issues within a family is often a rather challenging task since every member may develop a specific psychological condition, which requires a separate testing process. In the target environment, which requires the evaluation of a Hispanic family’s psychological status, it is recommended to apply a combination of a semi-structured interview and a projective test. The incorporation of these assessment methods will enable a nurse to locate the issues that affect the members of a Hispanic family individually and as a whole (Spector, 2017). Therefore, combining the described tools is highly recommended.
A semi-structured interview will help a nurse to locate multiple factors that affect family members. The identified tool will provide a chance to define the extent of family socialization and, thus will inform a nurse about the extent to which the target demographic may experience social pressure (Spector, 2017). The use of a projective test, in turn, will reveal the individual mental health concerns that the target family may be facing.
The test allows the participants to select the language with which they are most comfortable, which makes the evaluation more accurate (Spector, 2017). Furthermore, the adoption of a projective test as a tool for evaluating the participants’ psychological condition will help a nurse to build a detailed picture of idiosyncrasies in the target demographic, including the notions of family conceptualization, or familism, sociocultural and socioeconomic factors that affect their mental health, and other relevant issues (Spector, 2017). Therefore, the application of the projective test as the means of eliciting crucial information about the family’s psychological well-being is recommended.
Spiritual Assessment
Although the importance of spiritual well-being is often underrated in the evaluation of family health, it is a crucial issue that requires a detailed assessment. Spiritual wellness facilitates psychological health and allows patients to approach the process of their health management without specific religious factors impeding the reception of the necessary services (Aslakson et al., 2017). To evaluate the spiritual; the well-being of the Hispanic family, one will have to take an interview that will inform a nurse about the beliefs and traditions that may impede the process of effective health management (Aslakson et al., 2017).
As a result, one will be able to avoid the phenomenon termed as the immigrant paradox, which implies a drop in health rates correlated with a rise in socialization levels (Aslakson et al., 2017). The use of an interview is justified by the need to engage in a dialogue with the participants and study the nature of their health beliefs and traditions thoroughly.
Physiological Assessment
The evaluation of physiological concerns that the Hispanic family in question may have will involve a general medical examination and an interview that provides an insight into possible physical health issues that family members face. The integration of an interview is also essential since it will indicate health issues even if they are at a rather early stage of development. While the language barrier may present a hindrance to understanding the needs of the target demographic fully, it will also be critical to use interviews as a way of gaining information about the family history and other crucial facts.
As a result, a nurse will receive a detailed picture of the psychological challenges that the target family is experiencing. Specifically, the possibility of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety will be determined. Finally, the results of the test will indicate the current level of health awareness in the target family. Thus, a nurse will be able to select a patient education strategy that will enable one to provide the patients with essential information about health management (Spector, 2017). Thus, the adoption of both an interview and a test is justified in the described scenario.
Social Assessment
Being placed in a culturally alien environment is always a source of stress for any family. Therefore, it will be necessary to evaluate the current social well-being of the Hispanic family under analysis. For this purpose, the application of home visits as an instrument should be seen as an important step in advancing the assessment (Tosun & Temel, 2017). Frequent home visits will reveal whether the family has managed to reconcile the cultural differences and adjust to a new setting.
Environmental Assessment
Negative changes in the environment, such as pollution affect the well-being of numerous families in the most detrimental way. In the case under analysis, the threat to a family’s health status is intensified by the possible lack of awareness and resources for maintaining environmentally safe settings. Therefore, the adoption of interviews should be deemed as necessary (Spector, 2017). Besides, an interview that will help a nurse to determine the levels of environmental awareness in the specified family should also be considered an important addition to the evaluation process.
Epidemiological Assessment
Exploring the health threats that affect a community or a family within it on an epidemiological level is a necessary step toward reducing the threat of serious health conditions. To define the range of health issues that the target family may face, one has to study the economic, social, technological, and political factors that may impact the well-being of the family under analysis. For instance, the levels of crime within the neighborhood in which the family lives may lead to conclusions about the propensity toward injuries in the specified population (Krishnan et al., 2015).
Similarly, the location of the health resources that are available to the family will inform a nurse about the probability of general health concerns such as cancer, obesity, and similar issues (Krishnan et al., 2015). A profound analysis can be performed with the help of a social-ecological framework (Velasco-Mondragon, Jimenez, Palladino-Davis, Davis, & Escamilla-Cejudo, 2016). The specified tool will provide a nurse with extensive information about the target environment.
Conclusion
Since a nurse has to embrace every little detail that may harm the well-being of an ethnic family, the use of interviews as the main assessment tool should be regarded for determining most of the data. While examinations and the application of specific tests are required in some cases, the general tool for locating primary health concerns is an interview. The suggested method will provide a nurse with the details needed to make a conclusion about the current state of the family’s health and provide effective suggestions for improving it.
References
Aslakson, R. A., Kweku, J., Kinnison, M., Singh, S., Crowe II, T. Y., Ast, K.,… & Kamal, A. H. (2017). Operationalizing the measuring what matters spirituality quality metric in a population of hospitalized, critically ill patients and their family members. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 53(3), 650-655. Web.
Krishnan, A., Amarchand, R., Gupta, V., Lafond, K. E., Suliankatchi, R. A., Saha, S.,… Sreenivas, V. (2015). Epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in children-preliminary results of a cohort in a rural north Indian community. BMC Infectious Diseases, 15(1), 462-470. Web.
Spector, R. E. (2017). Cultural diversity in health and illness. (9th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Tosun, Z. K., & Temel, M. (2017). Burden of caregiving for stroke patients and the role of social support among family members: An Assessment through home visits. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 10(3), 1696-1794.
Velasco-Mondragon, E., Jimenez, A., Palladino-Davis, A. G., Davis, D., & Escamilla-Cejudo, J. A. (2016). Hispanic health in the USA: a scoping review of the literature. Public Health Reviews, 37(1), 31-57. Web.