Family Communication, Connections, and Health Transitions

When family members experience a diagnosis of a chronic disease or health crisis, not only the diagnosed individuals but entire families experience immediate and long-term stress as a consequence.

This book is about families facing these challenges, uncertain about what to do, how to help, or how a medical condition will affect their daily life. This book lays bare the raw emotional experiences of families communicating with one another amid uncertainty and, for some, in the face of death.

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Dr. Janelle Applequist, University of South Florida

Family Communication, Connections, and Health Transitions is an edited volume that adds understanding and depth to the field of health communication, and not only in the academic sense. While members of the scholarly community can benefit from the methods and emphases in this volume, families experiencing these very things can benefit from the findings as well. This book includes 15 chapters written by various academics to offer the reader a sampling of studies looking at communicative patterns among social support networks during times of illness or medical intervention… This is a must read book for anyone conducting research in family or health communication.