The current study consists of a systematic review of the quantitative literature on siblings of individuals with mental illness (MI). Despite the prevalence of mental illness, little is known about how siblings are specifically affected in areas of psychosocial, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. The review yielded 56 studies that examined outcomes such as behavior problems, the sibling relationship, caregiving experiences, and knowledge of mental illness among siblings. The majority of studies from the initial search were focused on siblings-as-comparison group, examining siblings for risk factors for developing mental illness. In total, the study samples covered a sibling age range of 6–81 and a patient age range of 4–84. About half (k = 27) of the included studies had samples primarily composed of siblings of individuals with schizophrenia, leaving other MI diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, and mood disorders underrepresented. However, results from comparison studies were mixed—half found that the MI-Sibs had fewer negative outcomes than the comparison group, and half found that MI-Sibs had more negative outcomes. Multiple factors, including female sibling gender, greater severity of MI symptoms, and belief in the patient’s ability to control their own behavior, were all related to more negative outcomes for MI-Sibs. Future work will focus on expanding the representativeness of MI-Sibs samples and analyzing experiences of both the sibling and the individual with MI.

目前的研究包括对精神疾病 (MI) 患者兄弟姐妹的定量文献的系统回顾。尽管精神疾病普遍存在，但人们对兄弟姐妹在社会心理、情感和行为结果方面的具体影响知之甚少。审查产生了 56 项研究，这些研究检查了诸如行为问题、兄弟姐妹关系、照顾经历和兄弟姐妹之间精神疾病知识等结果。最初搜索的大多数研究都集中在兄弟姐妹作为比较组，检查兄弟姐妹患精神疾病的风险因素。总的来说，研究样本涵盖了 6-81 岁的同胞年龄范围和 4-84 岁的患者年龄范围。大约一半 ( k = 27) 纳入研究的样本主要由精神分裂症患者的兄弟姐妹组成，而其他 MI 诊断如抑郁症、焦虑症和情绪障碍的代表性不足。然而，比较研究的结果喜忧参半——一半发现 MI-Sibs 的负面结果比对照组少，一半发现 MI-Sibs 的负面结果更多。多种因素，包括女性同胞性别、更严重的 MI 症状以及对患者控制自己行为的能力的信念，都与 MI-Sibs 的更多负面结果相关。未来的工作将集中在扩大 MI-Sibs 样本的代表性和分析兄弟姐妹和 MI 个体的经验。