Attributions and affective reactions of family members and course of schizophrenia

The authors tested an attribution-affect model of schizophrenic relapse att ending to the role of families' positive affect (warmth) and negative affec t (criticism). Coders listened to interviews of 40 family members taken fro m C. E. Vaughn, K. S. Synder, S. Jones, W. B. Freeman, and I. R. Falloon (1 984) and rated their attributions of controllability for the symptoms and b ehaviors of their relatives with schizophrenia. For family members not desi gnated as emotionally overinvolved, perceptions that their ill relatives' s ymptoms and behaviors were under the patients' control were related to fami ly members' warmth and criticism and to patients' clinical outcomes. Of the affective reactions, only criticism predicted outcome. In addition, patien ts' use of street drugs was related to attributions, criticism, and outcome . Together these findings suggest that families' attributions and criticism are important in understanding the relationship between family factors and course of illness.