Maximizing Time, Minimizing Suffering: The 15-Minute (or less) Family Interview

Abstract

Time is of the essence in nursing practice. Major changes in health care delivery, budgetary constraints, and staff cutbacks have required new ideas for involving families. Rather than excluding family members from health care, more efficient ways need to be determined of how to conduct brief family interviews. This article proposes that a 15-minute (or less) family interview with appropriate knowledge and skills can respond to this important aspect of nursing care. Suggestions are made for facilitating beliefs that need to be embraced for involving families in health care. Essential knowledge of sound family assessment and intervention models, interviewing skills, and questions are given. Identification and discussion of the five key ingredients for brief family interviews are offered. These are: manners, therapeutic conversation, family genogram, therapeutic questions, and commendations. This article cites two clinical examples that highlight the effectiveness and potential for healing in brief family interviews, whether in 15 minutes or in one sentence.

The Essence of the Family Critical Illness Experience and Nurse-Family Meetings

“…Establishing nurse-family relationships is seen by family scholars as critical to the optimal care of critically ill patients and their families (Hupcey, 1998;Tapp, 2001;Wright, Watson, & Bell, 1996), and the therapeutic benefits of family interviews and conversations can be accomplished in as little as 15 min (Wright & Leahey, 1999) or by posing just one question to the family (Duhamel, Dupuis, & Wright, 2009). In the 1990s, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) envisioned a new paradigm that recognized the mutuality of patients and nurses.…”

“…Nursing interventions are grounded in therapeutic conversations where nurses listen as families share illness concerns (Wright & Leahey, 1999). These models have come to be known as the family systems nursing (Bell, 2009).…”

Social Media and Family Nursing: Where Is My Tribe?

“…It is interesting to note these constraining beliefs sound the same as those frequently cited by nurses about why they don't practice family nursing-they believe they do not have time to involve families in their practice or don't have the knowledge and skills to adequately care for families (Wright & Leahey, 1999). There also seemed to be a core belief among my family nursing colleagues that the conversations on social media sites were trivial, unscholarly, and lacked peer review.…”

Expressions of cultural safety in public health nursing practice

“…One marked difference in the application of the 15‐minute interviews may be linked back to the expectations associated with family interactions. While Wright and Leahey suggest that there are a number of underlying, constraining beliefs regarding involvement of families in health‐care, such as that this is time‐consuming, and may lead to difficult situations (, p. 260), the need to involve families is a core aspect of cultural safety that is seen as an essential requirement in NZ nursing. This may have led to engagement and willingness to interact, as well as a more relaxed style of interaction on the part of the PHNs than might be expected from a strict application of the interview process.…”