ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews reported evaluations of interventions pertaining to more narrowly targeted interactions between the family and the health of its members. Family counseling, traditional family therapy, family systems therapy, family groups and groups for individual family members, crisis intervention, educational approaches, and supportive community services, such as early childhood support programs, home care programs, respite and hospice care, rehabilitation programs, and case management services, have all been the subject of evaluation. Family therapy approaches are most likely to be conducted from a family systems perspective. A family systems focus is far less evident among reported interventions aimed at helping patients and families manage illness and disability. Controlled studies of family interventions to aid patients and families in responding to illness are relatively rare. The existing intervention research should be regarded as heuristic in setting forth a future research agenda. A serious limitation of the intervention research to date has been its atheoretical nature.
