A Preliminary Study on the Standardization of Korean Version of the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale II-a Reliability and Validity

Lee, Jong Il; Seong, Deock Kyu; Rhee, Min Kyu

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Family environment is important in treatment, course, relapse, and prognosis of psychiatric illnesses. Thus the evaluation of family structure and the family therapy is important in the investigation and treatment of psychopathology. This preliminary study was designed to attempt to verify the reliability and validity of a Korean version of Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale II(K-FACES II) which evaluate the adaptability and cohesion of family structures. METHOD: The translated FACES II which constructed a questionnaire composed of a total of 30 items was applied to 124 members from families with no psychiatric patient in Seoul and Pusan by random sampling. Then the authors extracted the factors which were able to compose the scale and evaluated the concurrent reliability. Also for the discriminative validity test, the authors selected 62 members, who have been no psychiatric history, of families with schizophrenic patient diagnosed with the criteria of DSM-IV who have been treated in Seoul National Mental Hospital and 60 members of families without schizophrenic patient in Seoul and Pusan for control. RESULT: The results were as follows: The authors extracted 5 subscales of emotional bonding, acceptability and sharing, participation, negotiation and satisfaction, responsibility and expectation of 'Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale' which constructed a questionnaire composed of a total of 23 items. Cronbach's alpha value of each subscale which show its internal consistency was .83, .75, .71, .75, .71 respectively. In the discriminative validity test, all subscales except 'responsibility and expectation' subscale significantly discriminated between family group with schizophrenic patient and control group.
CONCLUSION
These findings confirmed the high reliability and validity of preliminary form of K-FACES II and suggest the possibility that K-FACES II could be a useful measure to evaluate the adaptability and cohesion of family structures. But we think that further study should be needed considering some limitations that 7 items were excluded and extracted factors could not be matched with FACES in factor analysis.