Living with severe anxiety disorders: Relatives' distress and reactions topatient behaviours

Psychological distress and complaints of relatives living with agoraphobic and obsessive compulsive patients were examined. Nineteen per cent of relat ives reported clinical levels of psychological distress. Relatives' complai nts about patients were focused on four primary areas of patient behaviour: chronic sick role/family burden, anxiety symptoms, interpersonal problems, and problems in their relationship with the patient. The focus of complain ts and relatives' self-report of psychological distress were not correlated with each other or with socioeconomic status, various measures of patients ' initial symptom severity, or relatives' criticism or hostility as measure d by the Camberwell Family Interview (CFI). However, relatives' distress wa s significantly correlated with a measure of patients' initial overall func tioning and marginally correlated with relatives' emotional over-involvemen t as measured by the CFI. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.