Family therapy for asthma in children.

Psychosocial and emotional factors are important in childhood asthma. Nevertheless, drug therapy alone continues to be the main treatment. Treatment programmes that include behavioural or psychological interventions have been developed to improve disturbed family relations in the families of children with severe asthma. These approaches have been extended to examine the efficacy of family therapy to treat childhood asthma in a wider group of patients. This review systematically examines these studies.