A home-visit program for first-year medical students as perceived by participating families.

A program to train first-year medical students to identify the impact of chronic disease on family functioning consists of a lecture/demonstration, reading materials, and a family home visit for small groups of eight students and an instructor. The authors used a self-report questionnaire to evaluate 30 families (88% response rate) participating in the home visits. Although 28% of families reported they were uncomfortable sharing a family problem, 90% of families reported no tensions or problems as a consequence of the visit. Two-thirds of the families learned new information about their family and two families decided to visit a health professional as a result of the visit. Almost all families were willing to participate again, demonstrating that family home visits are feasible and have few adverse consequences in a well-supervised training program.