As part of a randomized clinical trial of in-hospital and postdischarge nursing interventions designed to facilitate the individual patient's recovery and improve the family's functioning after cardiac surgery, we followed 67 patient-spouse pairs for 6 months after surgery. Family health was appraised by using three pencil and paper measurements: the Family APGAR, the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale, and the Family Inventory of Resources for Management. Mixed-effects analysis of variance did not detect differences for the main effect of intervention group; however, the main effect of time was significant for both patients' and spouses' APGAR scores and for patients' Marital Adjustment Scale scores, suggesting a pattern of response during recovery from cardiac surgery.