The purpose of this review of 73 articles reporting family research was to identify major areas of inquiry and to draw conclusions about what is known about families in which a member has a chronic illness. The review identified two distinct clusters of research in which knowledge is being generated. The first cluster included descriptive studies of family response to illness. The second cluster included explanatory studies of variables contributing to response to chronic illness. Within each of these two broad clusters, focused areas of inquiry were identified and the results of these studies were synthesized. The findings of the review are discussed in terms of their implications for developing nursing interventions and future research.
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