Self-report scales
■ Cost effective to administer
■ Provide information on how family members evaluate their own functioning.
■ The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAD)
■ 32-item measure of marital quality and marital adjustment
■ Four subscales measure
• marital satisfaction
• cohesion
• consensus
• affective expression
■ The Family Environment Scale (FES) is a 90-item true/false measure assessing how family members perceive their family environment along the three domains of relationships, personal growth and system maintenance.
■ The Family Questionnaire (FQ)
o Brief measure of perceived criticism and overinvolvment.
■ The Family Assessment Device (FAD)
o 60-item scale that assesses the six dimensions of the McMaster Model of Family Functioning
■ Communications
■ problem solving
■ affective responsiveness
■ affective involvement
■ roles
■ behavior control
Interview-based family assessment instruments
■ More labor intensive and require rater training.
■ Provide an outside perspective on how a family functions compared to other families.
■ The Camberwell Family Interview o Requires extensive training
o Used to assess levels of criticism and overinvolvment.
■ The Five Minute Speech Sample o Method of assessing expressed emotion in relatives of patients with psychiatric disorders.
■ The McMaster Clinical Rating Scale (MCRS) o Based on a family interview conducted by a rater
o Assesses the same six dimensions of family functioning as the FAD in addition to assessing the overall health/pathology of a family.
o Inter-rater and test-retest reliability as well as concurrent and discriminative validity.
o Can take from 45 to 90 minutes depending on the experience of the rater.
■ Cost effective to administer
■ Provide information on how family members evaluate their own functioning.
■ The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAD)
■ 32-item measure of marital quality and marital adjustment
■ Four subscales measure
• marital satisfaction
• cohesion
• consensus
• affective expression
■ The Family Environment Scale (FES) is a 90-item true/false measure assessing how family members perceive their family environment along the three domains of relationships, personal growth and system maintenance.
■ The Family Questionnaire (FQ)
o Brief measure of perceived criticism and overinvolvment.
■ The Family Assessment Device (FAD)
o 60-item scale that assesses the six dimensions of the McMaster Model of Family Functioning
■ Communications
■ problem solving
■ affective responsiveness
■ affective involvement
■ roles
■ behavior control
Interview-based family assessment instruments
■ More labor intensive and require rater training.
■ Provide an outside perspective on how a family functions compared to other families.
■ The Camberwell Family Interview o Requires extensive training
o Used to assess levels of criticism and overinvolvment.
■ The Five Minute Speech Sample o Method of assessing expressed emotion in relatives of patients with psychiatric disorders.
■ The McMaster Clinical Rating Scale (MCRS) o Based on a family interview conducted by a rater
o Assesses the same six dimensions of family functioning as the FAD in addition to assessing the overall health/pathology of a family.
o Inter-rater and test-retest reliability as well as concurrent and discriminative validity.
o Can take from 45 to 90 minutes depending on the experience of the rater.