The Family Assessment Device: An Update

Abstract

The current study set out to describe family functioning scores of a contemporary community sample, using the Family Assessment Device (FAD), and to compare this to a currently help-seeking sample. The community sample consisted of 151 families who completed the FAD. The help-seeking sample consisted of 46 families who completed the FAD at their first family therapy appointment as part of their standard care at an outpatient family therapy clinic at an urban hospital. Findings suggest that FAD means from the contemporary community sample indicate satisfaction with family functioning, while FAD scores from the help-seeking sample indicate dissatisfaction with family functioning. In addition, the General Functioning scale of the FAD continues to correlate highly with all other FAD scales, except Behavior Control. The cut-off scores for the FAD indicating satisfaction or dissatisfaction by family members with their family functioning continue to be relevant and the FAD continues to be a useful tool to assess family functioning in both clinical and research contexts.

Assessment of family functioning: evaluation of the General Functioning Scale in a Swedish Bariatric Sample

“…As expected, the overall mean score (1.55) was comparable to those of previous studies involving nonclinical subjects (1.43–1.80) . The first three postoperative months are regarded as a positive time during which the patient loses weight and there are increased familial interactions and positive responses from family and friends .…”

Systematic Review of Self‐Report Family Assessment Measures

“…The FAD has demonstrated construct validity in terms of moderate correlations with other self‐report measures of family functioning and low correlations with social desirability sets (Miller et al., ), and low to moderate correlations with clinician‐rated measures of family functioning (Barney & Max, ; Miller et al., ). The FAD has also been shown to significantly differentiate between clinical and nonclinical cases, which supports its criterion validity (Akister & Stevenson‐Hinde, ; Epstein et al., ; Mansfield, Keitner, & Dealy, ; Miller et al., ; Sawyer, Sarris, Baghurst, Cross, & Kalucy, ). Additionally, the 12‐item general functioning scale (Mansfield et al., ) and a briefer 6‐item version of this scale (Boterhoven De Haan, Hafekost, Lawrence, Sawyer, & Zubrick, ) have been shown to significantly differentiate between clinical and nonclinical cases, which supports criterion validity, and have demonstrated construct validity in terms of correlations with existing measures of family functioning.…”

The Experience in Personal Social Systems Questionnaire (EXIS.pers): Development and Psychometric Properties

“…When we reviewed social systems measures , we found some flexible family systems measures (Hamilton, Carr, Cahill, Cassells, & Hartnett, ; Pinsof et al., ), but mostly we found measures of systems functioning (see Sprenkle & Piercy, ) like the Family Assessment Device (Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, ; Mansfield, Keitner, & Dealy, ; Staccini, Tomba, Grandi, & Keitner, ) and the Family Adaptability and Cohesions Scale (Olsen, Protner, & Lavee, ). These measures assess the level of functioning in dyadic relationships (“you‐me”; e.g., Alonso‐Arbiol, Balluerka, Shaver, & Gillath, ) or whole families (“we‐as‐a‐whole”; e.g., Green, Harris, Forte, & Robinson, ) and encourage judgments from a meta‐perspective on the system, for example, “How would you value what is happening in the system that you are part of in terms of we ?” Systemic measures that allow the clients to decide whom they consider to be the principal members of their social system still are rare: Most focus on problems rather than solutions.…”