THE ASSESSMENT OF STRATEGIES IN FAMILIES - EFFECTIVENESS

(ASF-E)

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ASF-E

• Development of an item pool by a group of professions from various social sciences and family service agencies.

• Revision and validation of items (content validity): Independent rating of items by five family experts; exclusion of items not unanimously rated.

• Item administration: Tool completed by adult family members (one per family) from a community sample of 622.

• Exploratory factor analysis (PC analysis with Varimax orthogonal rotation)

• Selection of best items for further testing (item reduction) (construct validity)

• Retesting items with community and special samples

• Reliability testing (internal consistency)

• Discriminant validity testing (clinical versus community subjects)

Samples

1) Community sample N=622.

Age Range 18-90 years

Gender: Female 68%;  Male 32%

Race: White 56%; Black 37%; Others 7%

Family Type: Adult and Elderly Families 40%; Families with Adolescents and Children 60%; Clinical Families (mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse) 37%; Community Families 63%.

2) Community sample N=52

Age Range 30-57 years

Gender: Female 50%; Male 50%

Race: All White

Family Type: Adults and Elderly Families 35%; Families with Adolescents and Children 65%; no Clinical Families.

3) Clinical sample N=117

Substance abuse residential treatment. Residents (90% male) with one family member each.

Mean Age 40.5years

Gender: Female 49%; Male 51%

Race:  Black 80%; White 14%

Family Type: Adult and Elderly Families 60%; Families with Children 40%

Income: < $10,000 40%;  $10,000-25,000 34%; > $25,000 19%

Education:  Less than High School 28%; High School and More 72%.

4) Community sample N = 237

Relatively young, well educated

Race: 67% White; 23% Black.

5) Families with chronic pain N = 30

 Pain lasting from 1 to 43 years (average 9 years).

Age Range 31 - 82 years

Race: 83% White; 17% Black.

Education: Well-educated

 Income moderate

6) Community sample N = 445

Age range 18-81years; Mean Age 36 years

Gender: Female 65%; Male 35%

 Race: White 55%; Black 14%; Hispanic 12%; Asians 11%;  Native Americans 5%

Family Type: Adult Families 55%; With Children < 18 years  44%; Two Parents 53%; Single Parent 18%; One Generation 28%

Income: < 10,000 11%; 10-25,000 23%; > 25,000 66%

Education: Less than High School 4%; High School 42%; College 54%.

Results

Factor Analysis yielded 4 factors initially: Stability (System maintenance and coherence)6 items; Growth (System change and individuation) 6 items and External Support 3 items.

Internal Consistency -Reliability Cronbach's alpha .60 - .80, Total: .84.

Details, see Friedemann, 1991.

In all subsequent samples, external support did not factor as an independent dimension, especially with minority subjects, but was folded into the others. This was consistent with the framework. Therefore, these items were assigned to System Change or System Maintenance. Factor structure was indicative of all four dimensions. In each testing, a few items were added, some taken off. In all test runs, system maintenance and coherence factored together. Items were added to the Growth dimensions for better reliability; reliabilities ranged from .50 to .62.

Test-Retest Reliability with 43 substance abusing families (sample 3) was satisfactory:

Stability at 1 month r = .93, 2 months r = .71

Growth at 1 month r = .80, 2 months r = .56 (Growth was expected in these families)

Total at 1 month r = .94, 2 months r = .84

Concurrent Validity with the same sample: ASF was tested against FES (Moos).

Values were unsatisfactory. The internal consistency of the FES with this sample was very low (.008 to . 34). FES could not be used.

Testing for Type III Error: Congruence between items and the actual phenomenon - 1) convergence of intended and subject ascribed meaning of item and 2) convergence of score and qualitative description of family dynamics. Results very satisfactory.

Details, see Friedemann and Smith, 1997.