Short-term stability of task-generated, interactional patterns in families of schizophrenic patients

Both researchers and therapists who study schizophrenia make inferences about enduring family roles from observed patterns of interactional talking behavior within families. Evidence regarding the stability of these patterns is rarely investigated. The present study examined the short-term stability of intrafamilial speech patterns (who talks to whom) across two consecutive discussions. The sample was composed of families containing a recent-onset, adult schizophrenic patient. All discussions involved two biological parents and a young adult patient (N = 28). Families were classified into one of three interactional role-structure categories based on the intrafamilial speech patterns in two 10-minute discussions obtained in the same session. In addition, the affective style (Doane, West, Goldstein, et al., 1981) of the content of the discussions was coded. The results indicated that intrafamilial speech patterns were relatively stable across two discussions despite variations in the focus of the problem discussed. Further, when one parent was predominant in the discussion, a higher rate of negative affective statements was observed than when both parents were equal participants. The results provide further support for the use of discussion tasks in generating meaningful family interaction data.