Patients' attitudes toward physician involvement in family conferences

Patients' interest in family conferences was investigated using Doherty and Baird's concept of level of physician involvement with families. Patients entering two primary care clinics (N = 239) completed a questionnaire assessing their interest in physician level of involvement for each of six representative clinical situations: hospitalization for serious illness, new diagnosis of serious illness, depression, marital or relationship problems, stress-related symptoms, and frequent visits without improvement. Most patients indicated that they would want family conferences with their primary physician if a family member experienced hospitalization, new diagnosis of a serious illness, or depression. Slightly less than one half of the patients indicated that they would want family conferences for the remaining situations. Among those patients desiring family conferences, majorities responded that they would want their primary physician to provide all of Doherty and Baird's levels 2 through 5 (ongoing medical information and advice, feelings and support, systematic assessment and planned intervention, and family therapy), especially for hospitalization for serious illness and for depression. Most patients who indicated that they would want their physician to provide family therapy in the family conference also responded that they would want referral to a mental health professional for family therapy. The implications of these findings for clinical practice, residency training, and future research are discussed.