What is it about?
Families in which one member has a serious mental illness may face significant emotional and practical challenges, including caregiver burden and difficulties related to family life. Existing family programmes can also be difficult to attend or maintain over time. We evaluated FAM-RESMI, a brief 12-session programme designed around families’ real needs. After the programme, family members reported lower caregiver burden, greater resilience and better quality of life. Service users also reported improvements in quality of life.
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Why is it important?
Family interventions are an important part of care for people with serious mental illness, but many programmes are difficult to implement and maintain in routine services. FAM-RESMI was developed from the needs expressed by family members, service users and professionals, using a brief, practical and systemic-relational approach. Our findings suggest that this type of needs-based programme may be a feasible way to support families in public mental health services, particularly where engagement with longer programmes is difficult.
Perspectives
For me, one of the main motivations behind this work was a practical challenge: families needed support, but the programmes available were often difficult to maintain over time. We wanted to develop something shorter, more practical and, above all, based on what families themselves said they needed. I hope FAM-RESMI can contribute to making family interventions more accessible and easier to integrate into routine mental health services.
Javier Piris
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Effectiveness of the Family Recovery Programme for Serious Mental Illness: An Exploratory Study, Community Mental Health Journal, August 2026, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10597-026-01699-2.
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