Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-55tpx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-19T19:40:27.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Families coping with schizophrenia: coping styles, their origins and correlates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Max Birchwood  and
Raymond Cochrane
Max Birchwood*
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, All Saints Hospital, Birmingham; and School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
Raymond Cochrane
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, All Saints Hospital, Birmingham; and School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Max Birchwood, Department of Clinical Psychology, All Saints Hospital, Lodge Road, Winson Green, Birmingham B18 5SD.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

An analysis of the coping styles adopted by relatives of schizophrenic patients has been identified by many reviewers as essential to an understanding of the complex interactions between patient and caregiver and to the origins of relatives' expressed emotion (EE). This study reports a taxonomy of coping behaviour derived from interviews with relatives of schizophrenic patients. It was found that relatives adopted broad styles of coping across all areas of patients' behaviour change. Relationships were uncovered between the styles and (a) relatives perceived control, burden and stress, (b) patients' social functioning, severity of behavioural disturbance and progress of the illness. It is suggested that advising relatives of changes in their coping styles in the course of family intervention must be tempered by an understanding of their origins in patients' behaviour. Further research is recommended to identify the coping styles associated with the high EE/low EE research classification.

Type
Orginal Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , November 1990 , pp. 857 - 865
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barralet, L., Ferrero, F., Szigethy, L., Giddely, C. & Pellizzer, G. (1990). Expressed emotion and first admission schizophrenia: a replication in a French cultural environment. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 357–362.Google Scholar
Barrowclough, C. & Tarrier, N. (1990). The effects of expressed emotion and family intervention on the social functioning of schizophrenic patients. Social Psychiatry ad Psychiatric Epidemiology (in the press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birchwood, M. J. (1983). Family Coping Behaviour and the Course of Schizophrenia. Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Birchwood, M. J. & Smith, J. (1987). Expressed emotion and first episodes of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 152, 859–860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birchwood, M. J. & Smith, J. (1987). Schizophrenia and the family. In Coping with Disorder in the Family (ed. Orford, J.), pp. 7–38. Croom Helm: KentGoogle Scholar
Birchwood, M. J., Smith, J.Cochrane, R., Wetton, S. & Copestake, S. (1990). The Social Functioning Scale: the development and validation of a new scale of social functioning for use in family intervention programmes with schizophrenic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry (in the press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewin, C. R., MacCarthy, B. & Woods, R. (1990). Attributions and expressed emotion in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology (in the press).Google Scholar
Brown, G. W. (1985). The discovery of expressed emotion: induction or deduction? In Expressed Emotion in Families (ed Leff, J. P. and Vaughn, C.), pp. 7–25. Guildford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., Birley, J. L. T. & Wing, J. K. (1972). Influence of family life on the course of schizophrenic disorders: a replication. British Journal of Psychiatry 121, 241–258.Google Scholar
Cochrane, R. (1980). A comparative evaluation of the Symptom Rating Test and the Langer 22-item index for use in epidemiological surveys. Psychological Medicine 10, 115–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creer, C. & Wing, J. K. (1973). Schizophrenia at Home. National Schizophrenia Fellowship: Surbiton, Surrey.Google Scholar
Falloon, I. R. H. (1988). Expressed emotion: current status. Psychological Medicine 18, 269–274.Google Scholar
Gibbons, J. S., Horn, S. H., Powell, J. M. & Gibbons, J. L. (1984). Schizophrenic patients and their families: a survey in a psychiatric service based in a District General Hospital Unit. British Journal of Psychiatry 144, 70–77.Google Scholar
Greenley, J. R. (1986). Social control and expressed emotion. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 174, 24–36.Google Scholar
Hogarty, G. E., Anderson, C. M., Reiss, D. J., Kornblicth, S. J., Greenwald, P., Javan, C. D., Manonia, M. J. & the EPICS research group (1986). Family psychoeducation, social skills training, and maintenance chemotherapy in the aftercare treatment of schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 43, 633–642.Google Scholar
Kellner, R. & Sheffield, B. (1973). A self-rating of distress. Psychological Medicine 3, 88–100.Google Scholar
Koenigsberg, H. N. & Handley, R. (1986). Expressed emotion: from predictive index to clinical construct. American Journal of Psychiatry 143, 1361–1373.Google Scholar
Kuipers, L. & Bebbington, P. (1985). Relatives as a resource in the management of functional illness. British Journal of Psychiatry 147, 465–470.Google Scholar
Kuipers, L. & Bebbington, P. (1988). Expressed emotion research in schizophrenia: theoretical and clinical implications. Psychological Medicine 18, 893–909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J. (1989). Controversial issues and growing points in research in relatives' expressed emotion. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 35, 133–145.Google Scholar
Leff, J. & Brown, G. (1977). Family and social factors in the course of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry 130, 417–420.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacMillan, J. F., Gold, A., Crow, T. J., Johnson, A. L. & Johnstone, E. L. (1986) The Northwick Park study of first episodes of schizophrenia 4: expressed emotion and relapse. British Journal of Psychiatry 148 133–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platt, S. (1985). Measuring the burden of psychiatric illness on the family: an evaluation of some rating scales. Psychological Medicine 15, 383–394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, J. & Birchwood, M. J. (1987). Specific and non-specific effects of educational intervention with families living with schizophrenic relative. British Journal of Psychiatry 150, 645–652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, J. & Birchwood, M. (1990). Relatives and patients as partners in the management of schizophrenia: the development of a service model. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 654–660.Google Scholar
Tarrier, N. (1989). The effect of treating the family to reduce relapse in schizophrenia. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 82, 423–424.Google Scholar
Tarrier, N., Barrowclough, C. D., Vaughn, C., Bamrah, J. S., Porceddu, K., Watts, S. & Freeman, H. L. (1988). The community management of schizophrenia: a controlled trial of a behavioural intervention with families to reduce relapse. British Journal of Psychiatry 153, 532–542.Google Scholar
Vaughn, C. (1986). Patterns of emotional response in families of schizophrenic patients. In Treatment of Schizophrenia: Family Assessment and Intervention, (ed. Goldstein, M. J., Hand, I. and Halweg, K.), pp. 76–78, Springer: Berlin.Google Scholar
Wing, J., Cooper, J. & Sartorius, N. (1974). The Description and Classification of Psychiatric Symptomatology: An Instruction Manual for the PSE and CATEGO Systems. Cambridge University Press: London.Google Scholar