The Impact of Mental Illness on Families: Concepts and Priorities

Mental illness has far-reaching effects on other family members, as individuals and as members of a social system. While the study of the family impact of mental illness has been reported in the specialized mental health literature, it has not received much attention from sociologists. This article applies an illness behavior perspective to the study of family burden, reviews knowledge, and invites research by defining a number of issues, substantive and methodological, that need to be addressed. These include the definition and measurement of burden, diagnosis and course of illness, residence and kinship, social class, context, and coping, and the evaluation of social interventions designed to reduce burden and strengthen family supports. The article concludes with a discussion of family burden in terms of normative forces operating at the macro level.