Dr Ulrika Ostlund from Linnaeus University - Centre for collaborative palliative care in Sweden, came to visit University of Glasgow today to give us a talk on family systems care - hosted by Professor Bridget Johnston.
This was a really interesting aspect of palliative care and especially as this will also be part of my own research. Dr Ulrika Ostlund discussed that palliative care not only has effects on the patient but influences health of all the family.
What is a family? Some would say that the textbook family are parents and children, however there are many more definitions. A family is whomever you may feel is closest to you. This could be legally in in terms of marriage or adoption, biologically through genetics, sociologically with groups of people living together, or psychologically where groups have emotional ties. There was a quote listed by Hanson et al, 2005 who defined the meaning of family related to palliative care: 'Family refers to two or more individuals who depend on each other for emotional, physical and economical support. The members of the family are self defined.'
In Sweden they have family nurses whereas here our closest roles to that would be health visitors or district nurses. They have a system called Family Health Conversation (FamHC), which has been created to have a context for change and help create and begin new ideas and beliefs. The theory of this is for every family members views to be acknowledged and that reflective thinking is accentuated. Some core intervention components of family systems nursing, is to introduce the family to reflect on each other’s thoughts, exploring the family structure and to offer nurses reflections (Ostlund et al, 2014).
This is a very well discussed topic that many people will have different opinions on. It was interesting to see what individuals’ thoughts were, coming from many different nursing backgrounds and people reflecting on their own experiences. Many people will go through palliative care in different ways and it is a very unique experience for every person and their families. Therefore, there is always many different approaches and opinions towards this. As nurses, our care and support, is one of our best attributes and making sure we deliver this effectively is one of our main roles.
