Psychometric evaluation of the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire in measuring home visitors’ family focused practice

Abstract

BackgroundWorldwide maternal mental illness poses a major public health issue. Supporting maternal mental health and family health is a core aspect of home visiting. Increasingly the benefits of family focused treatments to maternal mental illness are being recognised. However, there are few reliable and valid measures that attempt to assess this type of practice.ObjectivesTo explore the psychometric properties of the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire in a population of home visitors.MethodsHome visitors (n = 230) from across a single region of the United Kingdom completed the Family Focused Mental Health Practice Questionnaire. Participants were all females, had a mean age of 44 years, and had an average of 11 years’ experience of home visiting. Exploratory factor analysis was used to explore the factor structure of the questionnaire in this population while Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of questionnaire subscales.ResultsExploratory factor analysis revealed a 3-factor solution where each factor contained at least three questionnaire items and had eigenvalues ≥ 1.0. Checks for internal consistency revealed that one factor was unsatisfactory (α < 0.6), which was subsequently discarded. A further exploratory factor analysis supported a 2 factor solution. The factors were named: professional influences on family focused practice and organisational influences on family focused practice. Cronbach’s alpha for the new scale was 0.949.ConclusionAs home visitors play a key role in supporting parents who have mental illness and their families, it is important to assess their practice using a reliable measure. Our psychometric evaluation has created a more valid, reliable and concise measure that can be used to examine home visitors’ family focused practice.

Predictors of family focused practice: organisation, profession, or the role as child responsible personnel?

“…A strength is that the Family-Focused Mental Health Questionnaire has been used in other countries, which creates the ability to compare outcome differences, although some caution should be exercised in comparing concepts across countries [90]. Only 10 of the 17 subscales had high enough reliability to be further analysed in this study [78], which contributes to knowledge on the weaknesses of some subscales [33, 56, 75, 91] and provides useful information on refining the measure.…”

Predictors of family focused practice among health visitors: A mixed methods study

“…While Maybery et al () established the content and construct validity of the FFMHPQ in Australia, subsequent studies have found varying degrees of reliability in the scale inferring inconsistencies when used across disciplines, services and countries (Grant et al, , ; Laletas, Goodyear, & Reupert, ; Lauritzen & Reedtz, ; Tungpunkom et al, ). Consequently, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to determine scale validity in the current population of health visitors (Leonard, Linden, & Grant, ). The EFA revealed a two‐factor solution, consisting of 20 items.…”

Navigating rocky terrain: a thematic analysis of mental health clinician experiences of family-focused practice

“…Family-focused practice (FFP) is a term used to describe mental health care that addresses the needs of both the parent with the illness and their children and other family members (Leonard et al , 2018; Ward et al , 2017). It is a broad concept encompassing an overarching approach to mental health care, inclusion of family members in care, and a range of specific interventions (Leonard et al , 2018).…”

“…Family-focused practice (FFP) is a term used to describe mental health care that addresses the needs of both the parent with the illness and their children and other family members (Leonard et al , 2018; Ward et al , 2017). It is a broad concept encompassing an overarching approach to mental health care, inclusion of family members in care, and a range of specific interventions (Leonard et al , 2018). Benefits of FFP for children include improved communication about, and understanding of, the parent’s mental illness, increased family cohesion (Compas et al , 2011; Siegenthaler et al , 2012) and a positive influence on psychosocial development (Cooklin, 2013).…”