Table 3.

Treatment promoting roles of family members

Themes	Quotes
Family provides emotional support and encouragement	Then my kid, she picked my spirits back up again. You know, hollering at me, ‘you dummy, you are worth more than what you say you are’. Because all of my life, my old man told me that I wasn’t worth shit. I was worthless. (Man) When I am depressed, my wife picks me up. She always has. She’s just a master, you know… My wife will pat me on the head and say, ‘It’ll be better. You are going to see the doctor today. He’ll work something out for you.’ (Man) I mean, she is trying to encourage him, like I have, to try to be a little bit more social, which he hasn’t really been doing. He does tend to sort of isolate himself. There are apparently family members and friends that have tried to get him to go out and do things. (PCP) You can’t deal with depression on your own, you can’t. You have to talk to your spouse or someone that you trust (PCP).
Family promotes depression self-management in the home	My son really got on me [when I stopped anti-depressants]. My son told me, ‘You’ve lost the will to live. Get on that medicine! What’s wrong with you?’ He scolded me…(Man) My wife is the pillar of my strength. She labels all of my medicines. She organizes how to take them, how many time, I mean how many milligrams…So she is the driving force as far as my medical support. (Man) P: If the family is there, then you can explain to them, like keep an eye on them. So how is he doing at home? Any improvement? Is he able to go out in a social group? You can make sure he’s doing the right thing. (PCP) [Have the family] tell him if he doesn’t go to church, to go to church, or social activities where he can get involved. Engage him so like he doesn’t go into this isolation mode. I think it’s beneficial to have family involved. (PCP)
Family facilitates communication about depression during primary care visits	She [daughter] goes with me when I go see my doctor. If my doctor asks me any questions, she will say, ‘Yes, he was. He was very agitated a couple of days ago,” and stuff like that. I said, ‘it’s just normal stuff.’ She just said that he’s been depressed, and he’s running around crazy.. So the doctor started to ask me question. (Man) She takes care of drugs because she can talk. What if I get mad, I don’t know what to say. She does. (Man) Sometimes, you know, I find it particularly helpful when someone is resistance to their depression to interview the other significant other and get some input from that person. Usually that helps in terms of bringing them on board (PCP) Or some men, they will come in and they will just talk up, “Oh, the weather is great. Fishing is great.” When we talk depression, they don’t want to talk about it…The wife will help. “He’s not going fishing. He’s not doing good.” (PCP)