Social Assessment Documentation: Genograms and Ecomaps

Chapter 2: Social Assessment Documentation: Genograms and Ecomaps

Overview:

• Explores the usefulness of acquiring in-depth psychosocial knowledge about patients
• Defines genograms and ecomaps
• Explains how to construct a genogram and ecomap and what tools are required

Description:

By assessing and documenting an individual’s place within their family and community, their adjustment to change in health or site of care may be eased, and quality of life improved. This chapter explores the use of genograms and ecological maps (commonly called ecomaps) in acquiring a better understanding of patients, allowing nurses to provide them with a better standard of care.

Topics:

• Rules And Regulations
• Professional/Bureaucratic Tensions
• Barriers To Documenting Gerontological Nursing Care
  • Nursing’s Cultural Resistance To Documentation
  • Nursing Care Of The Aged As Unremarkable
• Is There A Better Way?
• In Summary
• References

Speaker/ Author:

Pauline Savy RN, RPN, B Admin (Nurs), Grad Dip Ger, FRCNA
Pauline has had a lengthy professional involvement in aged care. As a registered nurse (Div 1) she has held clinical, educational and administrative positions within extended care and psychiatric facilities. She has worked as a nurse consultant in gerontology, specialising in the development of education programs for residential and community caregivers. Currently she is employed at La Trobe University’s Albury- Wodonga campus where she lectures in the Graduate Diploma of Gerontology course. Pauline’s research interests include the use of qualitative methods, ethnography and the experience of health and illness in old age.

A long-standing interest in the experience of dementia and the outcomes of care prompted her to undertake a Master’s degree (by research) at La Trobe University. This ethnographic study explores the caregiving environment and its impact on the personhood of dementia sufferers in long-term residential care facilities, as well as how caregivers understand their work.

Professional Reviews: