title: How does family intervention improve the outcome of people with schizophrenia?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is strong evidence of the efficacy of family psychosocial interventions for schizophrenia, but evidence of the role played by the attitudes of relatives in the therapeutic process is lacking.
  
  
  METHODS
  To study the effect of a family intervention on family attitudes and to analyse their mediating role in the therapeutic process 50 patients with schizophrenia and their key relatives undergoing a trial on the efficacy of a family psychosocial intervention were studied by means of the Affective Style Coding System, the Scale of Empathy, and the Relational Control Coding System. Specific statistical methods were used to determine the nature of the relationship of the relatives' attitudes to the outcome of family intervention.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Family psychosocial intervention was associated with a reduction in relatives' guilt induction and dominance and an improvement in empathy. Empathy and lack of dominance were identified as independent mediators of the effect of family psychosocial intervention. The change in empathy and dominance during the first 9 months of the intervention predicted the outcome in the following 15 months.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Relatives' empathy and lack of dominance are mediators of the beneficial effect of family psychosocial intervention on patient's outcome.
authors.affiliation: Dpto. de Enfermería Comunitaria, Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, e Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad de Alacant, Campus de Sant Vicent del Raspeig, Apdo. 99, 03080, Alacant, Spain, giron@icali.es.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Girón
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nova-Fernández
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mañá-Alvarenga
authors.forename: Andreu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nolasco
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Molina-Habas
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fernández-Yañez
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tabarés-Seisdedos
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gómez-Beneyto
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D003376:Counseling; D004645:Empathy; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005196:Family Therapy; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
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