The family interview: exploring experiences of family health and well-being

Health and well-being are basic concepts to nursing science and also important to practical nursing care: to provide effective nursing we need to have a good understanding of both health and well-being. Experienced health has been studied quite extensively at the individual level, but the family's point of view has been very much neglected. This study collected data on families' views on health and well-being in interviews with nine families. The interviews were held in a group situation, with all family members present, and they were structured around the three core themes identified by Astedt-Kurki in her doctoral dissertation: 'doing, knowing, feeling'. The emotional bonds that tie together family members may be a factor in the family's tendency to produce rich and detailed knowledge about their well-being in interview situations. On the other hand it is also possible that the family will try to convey as positive an image of itself as possible. For reasons of reliability the nine families taking part in this study were interviewed twice.