Family conferences: reasons, levels of involvement and perceived usefulness

In this study, family conferences conducted in a family practice model clinic were prospectively monitored. Study goals were (1) to identify the distribution of clinical situations for which family conferences were being conducted, (2) to test whether the levels of physician involvement typology developed by Doherty and Baird represented a hierarchy of skills, at least in their frequency of application in conferences, and (3) to generate clinicians' estimates of conference utility. During a 1-month period 57 conferences were held, primarily for medical management problems. Sixty-one percent took place in the model clinic (3% of office visits) and 23% in the hospital (20% of admissions). A hierarchy of levels of involvement was found: the clinicians indicated that medical information and advice was most often provided "a lot," emotional support was provided "some," systematic assessment and intervention were provided "a little," and family therapy skills were usually not used. Clinicians perceived the conferences to be usually useful to the patient, almost always useful to the family, and always useful to themselves. These results can provide information for future training, practice, and research.