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This article examines the usefulness of the Family Assessment Device (FAD) in assessing family functioning with school-aged children (under 12 years of age) compared to children 12 and older and mothers. FAD reports from 194 children with asthma (132 under 12 years; 62 12 years and older) were evaluated in comparison to mothers' FAD reports as well as mothers' reports on two other family functioning measures: the Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE) and the Impact on Family (IOF) scale, both relevant to functioning in families with children with asthma. Although FAD scale reliabilities were lowest in younger children (alpha = .48 - .79), good concurrent validity was found with mothers' reports on the three different measures of family functioning.
Older childrens' FAD scales showed good reliability (> .70) but poorer agreement with the various maternal measures. With modifications to make items more structured and simplified, the FAD could be tried with younger children, although documentation of improved reliability is needed before more widespread use with school-aged children is advocated. The measure already shows good agreement with maternal report in this younger age group, which likely would be strengthened with improved reliability. FAD reports in older children correlated less well with maternal measures, but may represent nonredundant information on family health from an independent perspective and are worth considering in addition to mothers' perspectives.
Fam Proc 41: 723- 731, 2002
The Family Assessment Device (FAD; Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1983; Miller, Epstein, Bishop, & Keitner, 1985) is a self-report questionnaire designed to assess specific aspects of family functioning: Problem Solving, Communication, Roles, Affective Responsiveness, Affective Involvement, and Behavioral Control, in addition to a more global General Functioning scale designed to assess overall family functioning. The original 53item measure was designed as a screening instrument to identify problem areas in families that were in need of more detailed follow-up in a clinical setting. The FAD grew out of the well-conceptualized McMaster Model of Family Functioning, a clinically oriented model of families that assesses structural, organizational, and transactional dimensions found to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy families (Epstein et al., 1983; Miller, Ryan, Keitner, Bishop, & Epstein, 2000b). Reliability and validity of the original version of the FAD has been well established (Epstein et al.,...