Factorsthat Impact Family Members
Factorsthat Impact Family Members
Thearticle has outlined several factors that impact family members inthe event that one of them is sick or has a terminal ailment. Theseinclude financial implications, social and emotional repercussions,education and work related factors and leisure. Family relationshipswere, however, found to impact members of a household the most amongthese factors. In most cases, the family relationship was found tostrengthen the relationship between them in a bid to encourage themember who is sick and comfort him with terminal illnesses. Familymembers of patients with terminal illness like cancer were observedto have strongest relationships as the members required a lot ofemotional and social support to undertake the painful treatments thepatients needed for improvement. This factor was however found toimpact other factors like social and leisure time (Golics et al.,2013).
Themore family relationship strengthened, the less time he/she found forleisure time. The families were always observed to visit the sickmember and comfort them at the expense of going for recreationalactivities. This was evidenced in oncology and mental disabilitycases examined. In most of these cases, the family spent a lot offunds on the treatment of the beloved ones.Somefamily individuals could not even get a chance avail themselves forthe required extra attention and service by the other member. Agood example is the patients with a mental disability who requiredconstant attention all the time to aid in their recovery. Familyrelationships were, therefore, a factor that significantly impactedthe family. It is imperative to include support person in the plan ofcare as this will help a great deal in reducing the familyexpenditure on their patients. Other reasons that have been cited forthe inclusion of support persons in the plan of care includes theprovision of a quick recovery for patients, to enable the sick personto feel that they are still loved, cared for and not isolated fromother family. This can also help the family to lead their normal lifewithout being impacted significantly by the status of their sickmember.
Reference
Golics,C., Basra, A., Finlay, Y., & Selek, S. (2013). The impact ofdisease on family members: a critical aspect of medical care.Journalof the Royal Society of Medicine, 106 (10),399-407.