Serious Illness and Family Dynamics. 2. Changes in Consulting Patterns of the Afflicted Family Members

Van Eijk J Th M (Department of Family Medicine, University ofNijmegen, St Annastraat 284, 6525 Nijmegen, The Netherlands).Serious illness and family dynamics. 2. Changes in consultingpatterns of the afflicted family members.Family Practice 1985;2: 70–75. This article examines the effect of an acute serious illnessin one member of a family on the subsequent health behaviourof that patient. The number of consultations made before andafter their acute serious illness was measured for 35 patientsand compared with a control group of 708 family members whohad not experienced an illness. An increase in the number of minor and serious complaints wasnoted in the year after the illness. In the case of minor complaintsthe changes ranged from four more complaints to six less, thusenabling the effect of background family characteristics—flexibility,conflict avoidance and family strain—to be investigated.More flexibility and lower family strain correlated with lesspresented morbidity. Other variables such as age and size offamily also correlated with morbidity. The role of the generalpractitioner in giving assistance to patients affected by alifethreatening disease and their family members therefore goesmuch further than just the treatment of the acute illness itself.