THE ASSESSMENT OF STRATEGIES

IN FAMILIES - EFFECTIVENESS

 

(ASF-E)

 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ASF-E

 

Method:

 

 

Development of an item pool by a group of professionals 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:   Females                           Males  68%                                            32%
Race: White                            Black                                    Others 56%                                             37%                                 

7%

                                                          

 

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

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                           

 

 

                                                   

                                                                                     

2) Community sample N=52       

                                                                             

                                                                                        

                                                                                        

 

Age Range:  30-57 years

                                                       

Gender:   Females 50%

 

Males 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:  Females 49%
Males 51%

 

      

Race:

Black         

  

 80%
White           14%
Other             6%

                                                                 

 

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: White        67%
Black         23%
Other 10%

                                                                                     

 

5) Families with chronic pain N = 30
Pain lasting from 1 to 43 years (average 9 years).

 

Age Range 31 - 82 years

  

Race: White 83%
Black 17

 
Education: Well-educated
Income:  Moderate

 

6) Community sample N = 445

 

Age range: 18 - 81years
Mean Age: 36 years
Gender: Females 65%
Male 35%

                                                                       

 

Race:  White                55%
Black                14%
Hispanic           12%
Asian                11% 
Native American 5%
Other                  3%

                                                                                    

                                                                                             

 

Family Type: Adult Families 55%
With Children < 18 years 44%
Missing 1%
Two Parents 53%
Single Parent 18%
One Generation  28%

                                                                        

 

Income: < $10,000 11%
$10,000 - 25,000 23%
> $25,000 66%
Education: Less than High School 4%
College  42%
Results
Factor Analysis yielded 4 factors initially:
Stability (System maintenance and coherence) 6 items
Growth  (System change and individuation) 6 items
External Support  3 items.
Internal Consistency -Reliability
Cronbach's alpha Subscales  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; reliability for Growth ranged from .50 to .62 in various test runs.

 

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 to improve 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 with minority substance abuse families.

Testing for Type III Error:

Congruence between items and the actual phenomenon -

1)       convergence of intended and subject-ascribed meaning of items

2)       convergence of score and qualitative description of family dynamics.

Results very satisfactory.

 

Details, see Friedemann and Smith, 1997.