A Conceptual Review of Family Resilience Factors

Abstract

Family resilience is the successful coping of family members under adversity that enables them to flourish with warmth, support, and cohesion. An increasingly important realm of family nursing practice is to identify, enhance, and promote family resiliency. Based on a review of family research and conceptual literature, prominent factors of resilient families include: positive outlook, spirituality, family member accord, flexibility, family communication, financial management, family time, shared recreation, routines and rituals, and support networks. A family resilience orientation, based on the conviction that all families have inherent strengths and the potential for growth, provides the family nurse with an opportunity to facilitate family protective and recovery factors and to secure extrafamilial resources to help foster resilience.