[An exploration of the issues involved in family related research]

Nowadays, health care delivery systems are changing from hospital-based services to more family-oriented or community-oriented care. The development of family nursing and family research is the focus of more attention than ever before. A family is composed of individuals. It combines the characteristics of individuals and collective groups, which makes family research more complex than studies of individuals. Consequently, research into family-oriented areas presents additional challenges concerning conceptual methodological issues. This article focuses on the issues of family research concepts, research designs, definitions of family, sampling, study tools, and data analysis. In order to promote high-quality family research outcomes, we propose below suggestions to serve as a guide to conducting family research: (1) identify the definition of family involved in a particular research question and choose a suitable methodology; (2) determine the number of family members and un its of analysis on theoretical bases; (3) select high-validity, high-reliability research tools in answering research questions; (4) analysis methods must match the concept of family and the characteristics of the units of analysis; (5) ethical issues must be respected in the recruitment of family members.