Table 4.

Associations Between Family Behavior Themes and Chronic Illness Outcomes in Included Studies

Chronic Illness Outcome Category *
	Mortality	Physiologic Control / Symptom Control	Self-Management Behavior	Disease-Related Quality of Life
General Behaviors
Positive:
Marital/Family Function	++	+ + + +/n n n	+ +/n n n	+
Family Cohesion		+ n n n	+	+ n n
Family Affectional Expression				n
Family Autonomy Encouragement		n n	+ −/n n	+ +/n
Negative:
Negative Interactions	−	−		n
Family Criticism		− n		n
Other:
Family Achievement Orientation		+
Family Activity		+
Family Control	−
Family Structure/Organization		− n n	n n	+ n
Family Sex-Role traditionalism		n	n	+/−
Disease-Specific Behaviors
Positive:
Disease Respect		n	n	+/n
Useful Illness Discussion	+	+
Attentive Disease Response		+
“We” Talk		+
Negative:
Disease Criticism		−
Disease Overprotection		n −		−
Punishing Disease Response		− −
Distracting Disease Response		− n
Expressed Emotion	n
Disease Conflicts Unresolved		n n	−/n n	− − −/n
Other:
Social Control			−

Notations are made for each test of association between predictors and outcomes of interest in included studies: + positive association found − negative association found n no association found +/−, +/n, −/n different associations found in same category in same study

^*Chronic Illness Outcome Types: Physiologic or Symptom Control = glycemic control, blood pressure control, left ventricular size, pain levels, joint inflammation, etc. Self-Management Behavior = adherence to treatment regimens, healthy eating, physical activity Disease-Related Quality of Life = disease-specific quality of life, or physical health subscales of general health QOL instruments