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Family Nursing Care Plan Planning

Sep 7, 2025

Overview

This lecture discusses the planning phase of the Family Nursing Care Plan (FNCP), focusing on prioritization, setting SMART objectives, and effective collaboration with families.

Features of a Family Nursing Care Plan

  • FNCP serves as a blueprint for systematically addressing family health or nursing problems.
  • The planning phase follows after assessment and diagnosis in the nursing process (APPI).
  • The core elements are approaches, strategies, activities, methods, and materials aimed at problem-solving.
  • Plans must follow SMART principles: Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
  • FNCP should be continuous, regularly evaluated, and updated based on family needs.
  • Must be based on clear, explicit, and existing problems as determined in the assessment and diagnosis.

Qualities and Importance of Planning

  • FNCP should be realistic and developed collaboratively with the family to encourage independence.
  • Planning individualizes care, sets priorities, promotes communication, ensures continuity, and coordinates care among providers.
  • Written form is essential for clarity, continuity, and accountability.
  • Leaders/delegates roles, but supervision and group cooperation are vital for effective planning.

Prioritization of Health Problems

  • After assessment, prioritize problems using four criteria: nature, modifiability, preventive potential, and salience (family’s perception).
  • Assign scores to each criterion, calculate weighted totals, and rank problems to establish priorities.
  • Modifiability has the highest weight; if a problem is non-modifiable (e.g., inborn conditions), interventions may be limited.
  • Nature of problem includes: wellness, health deficit, health threat, or foreseeable crisis.
  • Problems with the highest computed scores are prioritized in the FNCP.

Setting Goals and Objectives

  • Goals are general statements, and objectives are specific, measurable outcomes.
  • Objectives guide interventions and form the basis for evaluation of outcomes.
  • Goals and objectives must be mutually agreed upon with the family.
  • Barriers include lack of family recognition, time, or unwillingness to participate in care.

Evaluation

  • Evaluate if objectives are fully met, partially met, or not met; this determines the effectiveness of interventions.
  • Immediate, intermediate, and long-term objectives should be set.

Types of Interventions

  • Anticipatory interventions: Preventive/promotive actions taken before health issues arise (e.g., health education, immunization).
  • Compensatory interventions: Measures to manage or cope with existing health problems (e.g., treatment, rehabilitation).

Key Terms & Definitions

  • Family Nursing Care Plan (FNCP) — A systematic plan to address family health problems.
  • SMART — Criteria for goal setting: Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound.
  • Modifiability — The degree to which a health problem can be altered by intervention.
  • Salience — The family’s perception of the significance of a health problem.
  • Anticipatory Intervention — Preventive action before the disease/problem occurs.
  • Compensatory Intervention — Actions taken after a problem has occurred to reduce impact.

Action Items / Next Steps

  • Review prioritization criteria and practice scoring sample family health problems.
  • Prepare a written FNCP for assigned families, ensuring SMART objectives and collaboration.
  • Watch the video on FNCP format and prepare for the next session on implementation.