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Salud Mental 2011;34:111-120 Funcionamiento familiar, creencias e inteligencia emocional en pacientes con TOC

Funcionamiento familiar, creencias e inteligencia emocional en pacientes con trastorno obsesivo-compulsivo y sus familiares
María Teresa López Jiménez,1 María Isabel Barrera Villalpando,1 José F. Cortés Sotres,1 Metzi Guines, Martha Jaime L
Artículo original

SUMMARY
Mental healthproblems, specifically mental disorders, develop from a complex system and not from a single cause. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects more than 2% of the population and generally the course of the illness is insidious and chronic. When functioning adequately, family constitutes a very important resource to face health problems and to help to improve the patient’s life quality. This isthe reason why it is important to underline the relevance of a stable, good functioning of the family system aimed at attaining an optimal development of all its members. Such development may be hindered by the family’s incapability to modify functioning patterns at crucial moments when they are trapped in a series of inadaptable interactions which prevent to give specific solutions to the problemsthat are appearing, and when reporting, within a context of expressed emotion, an emotional over-involvement and high levels of hostility and criticism towards the member with OCD. Family accommodation is a phenomenon typical of families where the identified patient exerts a control based on aggressiveness when his/her wishes are not rewarded within the group. There are very few researches on thefunctioning of families of patients diagnosed with obsessivecompulsive disorder. Generally, these researches are related with the partially negative effects that the interactions have on the behavior of patients and their relatives by preventing or hindering the development of the subject’s system. The accordance between the patient’s emotional regulation or emotional intelligence and theirrelatives has not been studied. On the other hand, the knowledge of the beliefs that relatives hold regarding the illness may be related with the functioning of the group as a family, whereas beliefs will provide consistency to family life because they provide continuity between past, present and future. They are also a way to address new and ambiguous situations such as mental illness. This is thereason why getting to know these family systems may allow elaborating more specific and effective intervention programs for groups and families. Objective To determine the family types through a member identified with obsessive-compulsive disorder; to compare the emotional intelligence

profile between patients and relatives according to the perceived type of family; to compare the relatives’beliefs toward the illness according to the perceived type of family. Material and methods A sample of patients and their families with obsessive-compulsive disorder was obtained from those who were sent by the doctor in charge of their treatment to participate in a model of group therapy for OCD, consisting of cognitive behavioral theory, practices and psychoeducation. During the first sessionpatients and their relatives answered the following instruments: Family Adjustment and Cohesion scales (FACES-II) by Olson, Profile of Emotional Intelligence (PIEMO) by Cortés et al., Beck Inventory of Anxiety. Relatives answered too the Beliefs and Attributions Questionnaire by Salorio et al. In addition, data on family structure was complied. The sample was constituted by 48 patients and 61 relatives.All instruments were self-applied. Once that the type was obtained according to the Olson’s circumflex model, the emotional profile, the anxious and the depressive symptoms were compared through factorial 2x3 ANOVA. Beliefs and attributions were compared through simple ANOVA. Results Three types of families were determined as follows: high cohesion with chaotic standards for expressing emotions...