Resiliency in Families with a Member with a Psychological Disorder

Resilience in Family Members of Persons with Serious Mental Illness

“…Greef and colleagues 48 Neither of the 2 studies examined interventions; clearly intervention studies are needed to test the effects of programs to improve functioning in families with a relative with chronic mental illness. Large representative samples are also needed, as well as more focused homogeneous samples in terms of type of mental illness, length of illness, and age of the mentally ill person to be able to generalize the findings.…”

“…62 Family sense of coherence refers to the belief of family members that the internal and external environments are structured and predictable and that resources are available; they perceive life and their situation as a meaningful challenge and consider that they can exert an influence on the course of events. 48 10 Zauszniewski, Bekhet & Suresy In a study of 60 American women who were family members of adults with serious mental illness, Suresky and colleagues 26 found that caregiver burden had a negative effect on sense of coherence (β = -0.33; p < .01), although sense of coherence accounted for 41% of the variance in quality of life and partially mediated the effects of caregiver burden on quality of life. 26 In a follow-up study on the same women, Zauszniewski and colleagues 18 found that the effects of caregiver burden on sense of coherence were mediated by positive cognitions, which served as protective factors.…”

“…Most were either cross-sectional 23,48,49 or secondary analyses 18,26 and, therefore, it is difficult to assess changes in study variables over time. Convenience sampling limits the generalizability of the findings, and the samples were heterogeneous in type of mental illness, length of illness, single parent or intact family, and age of the mentally ill family member.…”

“…Convenience sampling limits the generalizability of the findings, and the samples were heterogeneous in type of mental illness, length of illness, single parent or intact family, and age of the mentally ill family member. 48 Also, given the small samples, caution must be used in drawing conclusions from the findings. 18,26,48 …”

“…48 Also, given the small samples, caution must be used in drawing conclusions from the findings. 18,26,48 …”