'Being appropriately unusual': a challenge for nurses in health-promoting conversations with families

Nurs Inq. 2008 Jun;15(2):106-15. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1800.2008.00401.x.

Abstract

This study describes the theoretical assumptions and the application for health-promoting conversations, as a communication tool for nurses when talking to patients and their families. The conversations can be used on a promotional, preventive and healing level when working with family-focused nursing. They are based on a multiverse, salutogenetic, relational and reflecting approach, and acknowledge each person's experience as equally valid, and focus on families' resources, and the relationship between the family and its environment. By posing reflective questions, reflection is made possible for both the family and the nurses. Family members are invited to tell their story, and they can listen to and learn from each other. Nurses are challenged to build a co-creating partnership with families in order to acknowledge them as experts on how to lead their lives and to use their own expert knowledge in order to facilitate new meanings to surface. In this way, family health can be enhanced.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Attitude of Health Personnel
  • Communication*
  • Cooperative Behavior
  • Family / psychology*
  • Family Health
  • Family Nursing / organization & administration*
  • Health Care Reform / organization & administration
  • Health Promotion / organization & administration*
  • Health Services Needs and Demand
  • Humans
  • Models, Nursing
  • Nurse's Role / psychology*
  • Nursing Theory
  • Organizational Innovation
  • Patient Participation / methods
  • Patient Participation / psychology
  • Patient-Centered Care / organization & administration
  • Philosophy, Nursing
  • Professional-Family Relations*
  • Social Change
  • Sweden