Clinical Application of the 15-Minute Family Interview: Addressing the Needs of Postpartum Families

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the application of the 15-minute family interview to family-centered nursing practice on a postpartum unit. Guided by the five key components of the 15-minute family interview (manners, therapeutic conversation, genogram or ecomap, therapeutic questions, and commendations), clinical excerpts of interviews with families illustrate application to practice. The 15-minute family interview is not a strategic, decontextual nursing tool; rather, it is a flexible interview guide that is embedded in family nursing practice, in the relationship between the nurse and family and in the nurse’s philosophical assumptions and obligations to do well by families.