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Palliative care: A need for a family systems approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Anita Mehta ,
S. Robin Cohen  and
Lisa S. Chan
Anita Mehta*
Affiliation:
Psychosocial Oncology, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
S. Robin Cohen
Affiliation:
Departments of Oncology and Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Lady Davis Institute, S.M.B.D. Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Lisa S. Chan
Affiliation:
School of Nursing, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Anita Mehta, McGill University Health Center, Montreal General Hospital, 1650 Cedar Avenue, Montreal, QC T6 310, H3G 1A4, Canada. E-mail: anita.mehta@muhc.mcgill.ca
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Abstract

Objective:

When a family member is faced with a terminal illness, the impending death presents a crisis and a challenge to the entire family as a system. This article highlights the importance of caring for a family when one member has a life-threatening illness, and describes the applicability of Family Systems Theory and its major tenets to the palliative cancer population.

Methods:

A MedLine and CINAHL search of Family Systems Theory related papers was conducted.

Results:

Research studies that have been done fail to capture the view of the entire family system, often limiting the perspectives of the family to one single member. The concepts of holism, balance, boundaries, and hierarchal subsystems must be addressed in the care of any family, including those who have a family member who is dying.

Significance of results:

A Family Systems Theory framework can be useful in helping health care providers, and particularly nurses, deliver optimal care to palliative cancer patients and their families and standardize the way research is done by providing an appropriate framework with which to study the family. In addition, the adoption of Family Systems Theory as the standard framework from which to study families in palliative care will provide consistency for future studies that is presently lacking. Finally, nursing interventions to care for the family are suggested based on Family Systems Theory.

Keywords

Family Systems TheoryPalliative careCancerEnd of life
Type
Review Articles
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 235 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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