The 28th Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for Research in Family Nursing was held on October 2-3, 2021 (live streaming) and September 20- October 20, 2021 (on-demand streaming). The theme of the conference was “Courage for a New Knowledge Adventure.” The conference featured lectures by Dr. Susumu Shimazono, Director of the Grief Care Research Institute, Sophia University, on “End-of-Life Care and Grief in the Era of New Infectious Diseases,” by Dr. Hideo Yasunaga of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Economics, the University of Tokyo, on “Family Health Revealed by Big Data,” and by Dr. Hiroshi Ietaka of Tohoku University of Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, on “The Academic Nature of Case Studies in Nursing Practice.” Pioneering research and practice reports were presented at three symposiums, eight exchange meetings, seven conference committee projects, and 74 general presentations. The number of registered participants totaled 899.

As one of the attempts to explore new horizons in family nursing, we created new categories of breakout sessions with specifications for family nursing so that researchers and practitioners who rarely see each other at other conferences can discuss in the same breakout sessions. The breakout sessions were set up as follows: family-nurse relationships, family distress, family growth and development, values about the family, decision-making and consensus building, intrafamily communication, family caregiver stress, social support, family role sharing, and intrafamily power structure. This new framework will be utilized at the next scientific meeting, and we hope that it will clarify the state of accumulation of research and practice in each of these areas, as well as future challenges.

The next meeting will be held onsite (hopefully!) in Fukuoka, Japan, September 10-11, 2022,  chaired by Dr. Yuko Hamada.

Noriko Yamamoto-Mitani, PhD, RN, Conference President of the 28th Annual JARFN Conference
Professor, Department of Gerontological Homecare & Long-term Care Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo