Psychometric Testing of a Measure of Family Functioning

描述（由申请人提供）：问题和意义：家庭功能的可靠和有效的措施可以通过正确识别家庭的优势和劣势，并通过在需要的地方分配稀缺资源，帮助减少健康差距。许多衡量家庭功能的方法在用于不断增长的低收入非裔美国单亲家庭时显示出不可接受的可靠性和有效性。对这一群体的家庭功能进行可靠而有效的测量，将使家庭科学家能够更好地识别这一群体的优势和劣势，并制定干预措施来增强家庭优势。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Problem And Significance: Reliable and valid measures of family functioning may help to reduce health disparities by correctly identifying both strengths and weaknesses in families and by directing scarce resources where needed. Many measures of family functioning have shown unacceptable reliability and validity when used with the growing population of low-income African American single-parent families. A reliable and valid measure of family functioning in this population will allow family scientists to better identify both strengths and weaknesses in this population of families and to develop interventions to enhance family strengths. Purpose: The purpose of this study is produce a reliable and valid instrument to assess family functioning in this underserved population by conducting psychometric testing and further refinement of the 42-item Family Effectiveness Measure (FEM), an instrument developed from qualitative data to assess family functioning with low-income, African American, single-parent families with children. Aims: The specific aims are to assess the following psychometric properties of the FEM: 1) factor structure, by conducting exploratory factor analysis; 2) reliability, by determining internal consistency and stability (testretest) coefficients; 3) construct validity, by testing hypothesized relationships between the FEM and measures of aspects of family well-being (family conflict, satisfaction with family interaction) and individual well-being (depression), which are theoretically and empirically known to be related to family functioning; and 4) construct validity, by conducting Rasch analysis to further evaluate the dimensionality of the measure, the extent to which items tap the breadth of the construct, and the extent to which persons respond to items in coherent ways. Methods: The FEM and validating instruments will be administered one time to a sample of 420 low-income African American single mothers. A subsample of 84 (20%) will be randomly selected to complete the FEM after 2 weeks to assess stability (test-retest) reliability. Factor analysis will be performed, reliability coefficients will be calculated, and hypothesized relationships among the measures will be tested by correlations. Items will be revised, added, or eliminated if warranted based on the study findings.