Examining Empirical Evidence to Conceptualize the Family Anxiety Construct

Chronic illness is a family affair. Families struggle as they respond and attempt to adapt to the ever changing illness demands. These demands often lead to high levels of stress, uncertainty, and distress that results in anxiety. The purpose of this research was to conduct an integrative research review to examine the nursing construct of Family Anxiety and identify nursing actions that address the families experience throughout the chronic illness. Literature searches were conducted using the CINHAL and ProQuest data bases with the key terms of \u27family anxiety\u27, \u27nursing actions\u27, \u27relationship strain\u27, \u27coping\u27, and \u27stress\u27 that yielded 286 results from publications dated between 2005 - 2015; 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. The antecedents of Family Anxiety were \u27relationship strain\u27 and \u27ineffective coping\u27. The Family Anxiety Construct encourages supporting family throughout the course of the chronic illness trajectory, maintaining normalcy in family life, and coping with the reality of the illness. Clinical practice nurses will be able to utilize this information to create nursing actions to address the anxiety experience for the family