Commentary on Li H (2005) Hospitalized elders and family caregivers. Journal of Clinical Nursing 14, 3-8.

摘要

This paper serves to stimulate debate on the ways in which nurses can engage with families in effective and constructive ways. In some ways, it articulates what many nurses will have been aware of throughout their practice, that families are important, whether to patients, or in their own right. We may all remember times when a family was an important element of the care we gave. We may have found family members essential providers of care, with key insights and information, or we may have found family members difficult or divided. Moreover, we may all recall conversations with patients where the importance of family was a central feature. We may have been aware that some of our patient's sense of self was intimately tied up with their family - they saw themselves primarily as a mother or a husband, for example. On the other hand, they may have felt that their family had stopped them from developing an identity - obligations and tensions had prevented them from moving beyond family roles and relationships.