Chronic illness and family: impact of schizophrenia and Crohn's disease on the family quality of life.

Background: Quality of life assessments are increasingly present in health research. Chronic and progressive illness of a family member unavoidably affects quality of life of a family as a whole. The goals of this study were to gain insight into the family burden of chronic disorders, especially possible differences in family quality of life (FQOL) in families that have members suffering from either schizophrenia or Crohn's disease, and families in which none of the members have chronic somatic or mental illness, as well as to pilot an instrument for this purpose.