Delimiting Family in Syntheses of Research on Childhood Chronic Conditions and Family Life

Synthesis of family research presents unique challenges to investigators who must delimit what will be included as a family study in the proposed review. In this paper, the authors discuss the conceptual and pragmatic challenges of conducting systematic reviews of the literature on the intersection between family life and childhood chronic conditions. A proposed framework for delimiting the family domain of interest is presented. The framework addresses both topical salience and level of relevance and provides direction to future researchers, with the goal of supporting the overall quality of family research synthesis efforts. For users of synthesis studies, knowledge of how investigators conceptualize the boundaries of family research is important contextual information for understanding the limits and applicability of the results.     

The Nature and Meaning of the Near-Death Experience for Patients and Critical Care Nurses

This study was designed to develop a conceptual framework for the near-death experience (NDE), reflecting its nature and meaning for the patient and the critical care nurse. The study used naturalistic inquiry to examine the question: What is the nature and meaning of an NDE and how has it influenced the individual's view of the self, the future, and feelings and beliefs about life and death? The NDE Scale (Greyson, 1983) was used with patients and semi-structured interview guides were used with both nurses and patients to explore the NDE from a comprehensive perspective. An NDE was defined as the report of “unusual” recollections associated with a period of unconsciousness during either serious illness or injury, or resuscitation from a cardiac or respiratory arrest. The sample included 12 patients who experienced an NDE and 19 nurses who cared for patients who experienced NDEs. This study highlighted the emotional aspects of the NDE. Patients described how the NDE transformed their lives and nurses reported how their experiences with patients changed them personally and professionally.     

Health Care Professionals’ Views of Sharing Information with Families Who Have a Child with a Genetic Condition

The purpose of this study was to examine health care professionals’ views and strategies for individualizing information sharing in families who have a child with a genetic condition. The sample consisted of 37 health professionals from three clinical sites in the greater metropolitan area of a large Midwestern city. Qualitative content thematic analysis was used to analyze data from the health professionals’ semi-structured interviews. Four themes captured how health care professionals work with families around information management: Sharing Information with Parents, Taking into Account Parental Preferences, Understanding of the Condition, and Helping Parents Inform Others. These findings contribute to understanding the processes that health professionals use in sharing information with parents who have children with a genetic condition, and they provide guidance for clinical practice, professional training, and future research.     

Family consequences of refugee trauma

OBJECTIVE: To construct a model on the consequences of political violence for refugee families based upon a qualitative investigation. METHODS: This study used a grounded-theory approach to analyze qualitative evidence from the CAFES multi-family support and education groups with Bosnian refugee families in Chicago. Textual coding and analysis was conducted using ATLAS/ti for Windows. RESULTS: A grounded-theory model of Family Consequences of Refugee Trauma (FAMCORT) was constructed that describes Displaced Families of War across four realms of family life: (1) changes in family roles and obligations, (2) changes in family memories and communications, (3) changes in family relationships with other family members; and (4) changes in family connections with the ethnic community and nation state. In each realm, the model also specifies family strategies, called Families Rebuilding Lives, for managing those consequences. CONCLUSIONS: Political violence leads to changes in multiple dimensions of family life and also to strategies for managing those changes. Qualitative family research is useful in better understanding refugee families and in helping them through family-oriented mental health services.     

Parents’ Perceptions of Functioning in Families Having a Child with a Genetic Condition

In a study of families having a child with a genetic condition, patterns of family functioning were identified through cluster analysis of families with two spouses. Patterns were based on both parents’ assessments of family satisfaction and hardiness, as measured respectively by the Family APGAR and Family Hardiness Index. The validity and clinical significance of the clusters were supported by demonstrating that cluster membership distinguished between parental reports of their own quality of life and their child’s functional status, as measured by the Quality of Life Index and the Functional Status II, respectively. The clusters were non-categorical in the sense that they did not depend on the type of genetic condition. These findings point to the importance of addressing family functioning as part of genetic counseling.