An extended family suddenly confronted with a life-threatening hereditary arrhythmia

This exploratory study serves to illustrate the psychological impact on an extended family in the process of genetic counselling and testing for a potentially life-threatening arrhythmia, the long-QT syndrome (LQTS).

All members of the third generation and their partners (n=11) were interviewed, the mutation carriers with partners twice. In addition they completed measures for anxiety and depression three times in 18 months.

During the interviews these family members emphasised the damaged solidarity when the family is divided into carriers and noncarriers of a mutation in a LQTS predisposing gene. This demonstrates one way in which a family can react to the reality of being at risk of a potentially severe disease. Rewriting family history and mourning early death seem other ways to deal with this. The distress scores, especially of the women, were moderate to clinically high, not because of their own chance of having an arrhythmia but more due to their children's risk.

Mothers need educational even more than emotional support, because the lifestyle of their carrier children is in need of radical change. The setting of a combined outpatient cardiogenetic clinic with a medical and psychosocial staff meets such needs efficiently.