OUTCOMES OF FAMILY EMPOWERMENT AS A NURSING INTERVENTION
In Table 2, a list of suggested outcomes for which to measure the effect
of this nursing intervention is found. Outcomes indicated for
family empowerment in the literature have been both clinically and
empirically based. They generally address the family’s ability to sustain
family life through improved competence, access and control
over needed resources, decision making, and problem solving (Dunst
et al., 1988; Nugent et al., 1992). Wuest and Stern (1991) identified in
their research three family empowerment outcomes: negotiation with
health professionals, minimization of the condition’s effect on the
child and siblings, and rearrangement of roles and responsibilities in
the family. As seen in Table 2, these outcomes were further defined
for the purposes of this article by synthesizing Wuest and Stern’s
(1991) research with other scholarly works. Although Dunst and
Trivette (1996) included improved control appraisals as empowerment outcomes, the actual behaviors of families in this case would appear
to be of greater clinical significance.
In families of a child with a chronic health condition, a crucial outcome
is the quality of health care the child receives from the family in
their collaboration with health professionals. In research families
who received the family empowerment intervention were found to
demonstrate improved family life but did not manage the health care
needs of the child adequately, the use of the intervention would need
to be questioned. Therefore, this outcome was listed separately from
the first three family empowerment outcomes in Table 2 and labeled
as a health care outcome. Of the studies discussed in this article, Gibson
(1995) was the only researcher to identify the quality of the child’s
health care as a family empowerment outcome.
A shortcoming of family empowerment outcome discussions is the
omission of measures of health care use and costs.Anexception is Buchanan
and Gerrity (1989), who suggested the following family empowerment
outcomes: awareness of resources available, understanding
and appropriate use of different levels of care, and use of services
on an emergency-only basis. In today’s cost-conscious climate,
evaluation of the efficacy of nursing interventions is of critical importance.
Therefore, an additional outcome type was incorporated into
Table 2 and labeled health services. The relationship of the three types
of outcomes is further discussed in the following section.