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More Research Needed to Involve Families in Psychosocial Interventions |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Family-oriented psychosocial interventions seem to be beneficial in improving the mental and physical well-being of both patients with chronic illness and their family members, but the results aren't as robust as researchers had hoped. Prior studies have found that supportive and non-supportive actions by family members are linked with a patient's emotional well-being, health behaviors, immune function, blood pressure and illness events. When psychosocial and behavioral interventions such as patient education, support groups and cognitive behavioral therapies are integrated into care for chronic illness, the patient's health is greatly improved. Researchers have attempted to incorporate a family member into the psychosocial component of the patient's care in an attempt to bolster the effects the interventions have on the patient while also benefiting the caregiver. For a number of reasons, researchers haven't been able to demonstrate consistent results across studies," said Lynn M. Martire, Ph.D., of the department of psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and University Center for Social and Urban Research at the University of Pittsburgh. In a review of the scientific literature, the University of Pittsburgh researchers found that in 70 studies that compared a family-oriented psychosocial intervention to usual medical care alone, the family-oriented interventions had a small but promising effect on the emotional well-being of the patient and family member. A second literature review of 12 studies that compared patient-oriented psychosocial interventions to family-oriented interventions showed varying results, according to a number of factors, including disease, gender and type of intervention.
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