Comprehensive exams for Mental Health Q 130
The nurse is interacting with a family consisting of a mother, a father, and a hospitalized adolescent who has a diagnosis of alcohol abuse. The nurse analyzes the situation and agrees with the adolescent’s view about family rules. Which intervention is most appropriate?
A. The nurse should align with the adolescent, who is the family scapegoat.
B. The nurse should encourage the parents to adopt more realistic rules.
C. The nurse should encourage the adolescent to comply with parental rules.
D. The nurse should remain objective and encourage mutual negotiation of issues.
Correct Answer: D. The nurse should remain objective and encourage mutual negotiation of issues.
The nurse who wishes to be helpful to the entire family must remain neutral. Taking sides in a conflict situation in a family will not encourage negotiation, which is important for problem resolution. Nurses who choose collaboration as their conflict resolution strategy incorporate others’ ideas into their own; while the result may not be as half-and-half as with the compromising method, the solution still has aspects of everyone’s opinions and input, increasing group buy-in and general satisfaction with the final decision.
Option A: If the nurse aligned with the adolescent, then the nurse would be blaming the parents for the child’s current problem; this would not help the family’s situation. Learning to negotiate conflict is a function of a healthy family.
Option B: Instead of adopting a “me vs. you” mentality, nurses approaching interpersonal conflict resolution from a compromising mentality aim to reach a solution that makes both sides at least partially happy. By doing so, both sides leave with something they want and are able to move forward with implementing a solution.
Option C: Encouraging the parents to adopt more realistic rules or the adolescent to comply with parental rules does not give the family an opportunity to try to resolve problems on their own. Nurses who choose to use obliging as their main conflict resolution strategy are people-pleasers. They’re fine accommodating other ideas even at the expense of shelving or de-prioritizing their own. This can be helpful when it moves the best solution forward, but it can also be dangerous because it may lead to a case where an individual withholds valid convictions or opinions just to “keep the peace.”