A woman tells the BSN-prepared community health nurse that she and her son fight all the time since the son started using drugs. The son tells his mother that his drug use is none of her business

Question

Which initial response by the nurse would be most appropriate? a. Have separate, informal, nonjudgmental conversations with the mother and the son about their respective concerns.
b. Initiate family therapy with the family unit, focusing on dysfunctional communication patterns.
c. Advise the mother to motivate her son by telling him that if he doesn't get drug abuse treatment, she'll report him to the police.
d. Discuss the dangers of substance abuse with the son, and then refer him to substance abuse treatment providers.

Answer 1

A
Informal, separate conversations will help establish trust and develop an effective nurse-patient relationship while helping the nurse assess individual and family functioning. It is also important that the perspectives of all family members be heard and considered. A BSN-prepared nurse is not certified to conduct family therapy. Threatening the son to get him into drug treatment would be coercive and intensify the dysfunction that already exists in their relationship. Drug abuse education would be helpful at a later point but not as an initial response; doing so without a nurse-patient relationship would likely cause him to tune out the nurse.