Martire, L.M., Lustig, A.P., Schulz, R., Miller, G.E., & Helgeson, V.S. (2004). Is it beneficial to involve a family member? A meta-analysis of psychosocial interventions for chronic illness. Health Psychology, 23, 599–611.

MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CancerLit, CINAHL, American College of Physicians Journal Club, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness were searched using key words in groups (a) patient, ill, illness or health, (b) family, caregiver, caregiving, marriage, marital, spouse, spousal, couple, or partner, and (c) treatment, intervention, or support. ERIC, Social Work Abstracts, Expanded Academic ASAP, Academic Search Elite, PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge and Web of Science, Economic and Social Research Council, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, and Physician Data Query/National Cancer Institute, as well as tables of contents of all Elsevier Publications medical journals, were searched using the key words family, caregiving or caregiver, and intervention or treatment.

• Seventy randomized trials comparing interventions with usual care were used.
• The sample was a mixture of family caregivers of individuals with chronic illness (Alzheimer disease, dementia, stroke, cardiac disease, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, brain injury, and cancer).
• The sample included two large studies of 2,042 (Alzheimer) and 4,408 (post-myocardial infarction) participants.
• Excluding those two large studies, the average sample size was 87 caregivers.

Overall, evidence suggested that interventions reduced depressive symptoms in family members when the intervention focused on illnesses other than dementia. Family interventions targeted to patients and family members (as a dyad) or to family members alone were effective in reducing caregiver burden. Interventions offered to spouses alone or to a combination of family members were effective in reducing caregiver burden. Interventions had a stronger effect in reducing burden, depression, and anxiety when relationship issues between patients and caregivers were addressed.

No evidence was found that psychosocial interventions relieved anxiety in family members (uniform across studies).

A family intervention demonstrated the strongest evidence for improving family burden and was uniform across studies for spouses and for mixed groups of family members.

Only five studies included cancer populations.