Background: Family-oriented medical care is one of the basic tenets of family practice. However, little is known about the extent to which: 1) resident physicians discuss family issues during outpatient office visits and 2) attending physicians address family issues during teaching consultations.
Methods: Two hundred and fifty-one videotaped resident-patient interviews were classified according to Doherty and Baird's Levels of Family Involvement. A similar method was used to analyze the level to which family issues were included by attending physicians during 76 individual teaching consultations with residents.
Results: Residents asked about family issues with individual patients or spoke directly to family members about medical concerns in 41% of interviews. Planned family conferences or emotional support of family members seldom occurred. Attending physicians inquired about family information in 6% of the one-on-one teaching consultations with residents.
Conclusions: The results suggest the need for increased faculty development efforts in the area of family involvement. Further applications of the Levels of Family Involvement are needed to establish norms of family orientation for residents and community family physicians.