Study Ties Family Stress to Health Problems : Medicine: Researchers found increase in illnesses. Neither financial nor social stress had as great an impact.

Stressful family relationships can lead to increased health problems and health care costs, a Duke University study suggests.

The study of 413 patients at a rural North Carolina clinic showed that people reporting family stress had more health problems than those who said they had other stresses, such as financial or social.

“The message is that family stress is important to the patient in terms of their health, at the present time and as a predictive measure,” said Dr. George Parkerson Jr., a professor and former family practice department chairman at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was presented in the March issue of the American Medical Assn.’s Archives of Family Medicine.

“People have talked for a long time that stress can cause disease and this is a nice illustration of that,” said Dr. Andrew Baum, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Those with high family stress scores among the 413 patients studied over an 18-month period had more follow-up visits to the clinic, more referrals to specialists, more hospitalizations and a higher severity of illnesses, the study showed. A total of 137 patients reported high family stress.