[How can we better help the relatives of schizophrenic patients?]

The strain to which relatives of schizophrenics are subjected is described on the basis of communications received from relatives of schizophrenic patients of the psychiatric hospital in which the authors of this article work. Relief can be offered to the relatives via two types of groups of relatives made up as follows: "Short-term" information groups for relatives of patients who have the disease for the first time, and "long-term" groups for relatives of schizophrenics with a repeated record of hospitalisation. The work done by such a "long term" group is described: A subject-centred group of relatives without patients with decreasing frequency of attendance by group leaders after one year and topic orientation according to concrete everyday tasks of living together. The formation of these groups of relatives aims at affording relief to those relatives who are largely depressed and feel isolated because of the burden that has been placed on them by the patient, to provide them with information and to offer a system of mutual learning to acquire a relaxed way of approach and dealing with the patient which will reduce the likelihood of relapses. Other possibilities of affording relief to the relatives are described, such as certain days on which relatives can meet with each other and with the doctors and nurses in the hospital to discuss all problems the relatives have to tackle and which, they feel, bear them down. These "days of the relatives" have proved very successful and have been giving a lot of encouragement to the families concerned.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)