Background
The misuse of alcohol is of major national and international public health concern and can bring significant harm and burden to family members, resulting in increased use of health and social care services and a drain on their resources.

There is increasing evidence of a variety of ways of working with families affected by alcohol misuse to achieve positive outcomes. Whilst several systematic reviews have focused on interventions for people with alcohol problems, few reviews have attempted to synthesise findings from studies of family focused interventions; those which have been done are quite old, and have tended to focus on drug problems (or drug and alcohol problems), and towards outcomes related to treatment engagement and retention and the alcohol or drug consumption of the misuser. The evidence in this area is growing but is disparate and needs reviewing and synthesising in a systematic way so that informed decisions can be made about developing policy, practice and research in this area. An up-to-date review of interventions for family members would help guide the current significant and overdue shift towards more holistic treatment.

Therefore, the aims of this review were:
1.To undertake a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature on psychological interventions for families affected by alcohol misuse.
2.To assess the available evidence on the effectiveness of psychological interventions in improving life for family members of alcohol misusers.