On RF has been predominantly conducted and reported in the field of psychology, it is a concept that offers rich potential for application in nursing research and clinical practice as a model of care within pediatric healthcare settings. Parents commonly seek assistance from nurses and primary care providers for help with their children’s behavior. They will often ask the question “what should I do?” and hope for concrete instruction from the clinician. Assisting parents in developing the capacity to consider their children’s mental states in relation to their behavior will help to increase parents’ understanding of their children’s thoughts, feelings and intentions underlying the behavior in question. Reflecting on their children’s behavior in this positive social-emotional manner provides a framework that can help parents learn that if they approach child rearing issues by trying to think about and understand their child’s mental states, then the question of what to do will become more clear (Slade, 2008).NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript MethodsThe aim of this concept analysis was to identify the definitional elements of parental RF through an analysis of the history, attributes, measurement, and current research related to parental RF. The approach combined the Walker and Avant (2011) method of concept analysis and the Whittemore and Knafl (2005) method of integrative review to help define and further develop the concept as applied to nursing. The review and development of the concept focused on an application of the concept specifically to parents (Fawcett, 2012). A literature review was conducted from 1989?013 using various search strategies. An online literature search used the keywords “reflective functioning” or mentalization (a term often used synonymously to RF), and parent, mother, or father, from the online databases, SCOPUS, CINAHL, PubMed, and PsychInfo. The literature search was limited to articles and reviews printed in the English language. The result yielded 133 articles and book chapters. Notably, only two of the citations were found in the nursing literature. Among the 133 citations, the review excluded dissertations and citations that did not involve a discussion of the parent-child relationship with respect to RF or mentalization. The final dataset included 85 source citations. The primary author researched three measurement instruments through personal communication with the instrument developers and review of the associated scoring manuals.J Clin Nurs. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 December 01.MK-886MedChemExpress MK-886 Ordway et al.PageCombining the Walker and Avant (2011) with the Whittemore and Knafl (2005) method of concept analysis, the focus of this review was to understand how the concept of RF (with specific focus on parents) is defined in the predominately psychology-based literature, and to apply the definition of the concept for nursing practice. Analysis began with a summary of each source identified in the literature search. Data were extracted from primary sources with the 11-DeoxojervineMedChemExpress 11-Deoxojervine following criteria: sample, type of report (empirical, theoretical/review, case study, or manual), and reference to the concept of parental reflective functioning. Among the 85 sources, 31 empirical studies, 17 book chapters from 13 books, 32 review papers, and 5 case studies were analyzed. Following Whittemore and Knafl (2005) the integrative review began with problem identification, literature search, d.On RF has been predominantly conducted and reported in the field of psychology, it is a concept that offers rich potential for application in nursing research and clinical practice as a model of care within pediatric healthcare settings. Parents commonly seek assistance from nurses and primary care providers for help with their children’s behavior. They will often ask the question “what should I do?” and hope for concrete instruction from the clinician. Assisting parents in developing the capacity to consider their children’s mental states in relation to their behavior will help to increase parents’ understanding of their children’s thoughts, feelings and intentions underlying the behavior in question. Reflecting on their children’s behavior in this positive social-emotional manner provides a framework that can help parents learn that if they approach child rearing issues by trying to think about and understand their child’s mental states, then the question of what to do will become more clear (Slade, 2008).NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript MethodsThe aim of this concept analysis was to identify the definitional elements of parental RF through an analysis of the history, attributes, measurement, and current research related to parental RF. The approach combined the Walker and Avant (2011) method of concept analysis and the Whittemore and Knafl (2005) method of integrative review to help define and further develop the concept as applied to nursing. The review and development of the concept focused on an application of the concept specifically to parents (Fawcett, 2012). A literature review was conducted from 1989?013 using various search strategies. An online literature search used the keywords “reflective functioning” or mentalization (a term often used synonymously to RF), and parent, mother, or father, from the online databases, SCOPUS, CINAHL, PubMed, and PsychInfo. The literature search was limited to articles and reviews printed in the English language. The result yielded 133 articles and book chapters. Notably, only two of the citations were found in the nursing literature. Among the 133 citations, the review excluded dissertations and citations that did not involve a discussion of the parent-child relationship with respect to RF or mentalization. The final dataset included 85 source citations. The primary author researched three measurement instruments through personal communication with the instrument developers and review of the associated scoring manuals.J Clin Nurs. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 December 01.Ordway et al.PageCombining the Walker and Avant (2011) with the Whittemore and Knafl (2005) method of concept analysis, the focus of this review was to understand how the concept of RF (with specific focus on parents) is defined in the predominately psychology-based literature, and to apply the definition of the concept for nursing practice. Analysis began with a summary of each source identified in the literature search. Data were extracted from primary sources with the following criteria: sample, type of report (empirical, theoretical/review, case study, or manual), and reference to the concept of parental reflective functioning. Among the 85 sources, 31 empirical studies, 17 book chapters from 13 books, 32 review papers, and 5 case studies were analyzed. Following Whittemore and Knafl (2005) the integrative review began with problem identification, literature search, d.