The Family Assessment Measure III Dyadic Relationships Scale: Comparative Psychometric Evaluation of the French and English Versions

Abstract

The purposes of this article are to present the reliability and validity analyses of the French version of the Family Assessment Measure III Dyadic Relationships Scale (DRS) and to compare its psychometric properties with the English version. The assessment offamilyfunctioning remains an immense challenge for both family researchers and clinicians. The availability of instruments in several languages is of the utmost importance to advance cross-cultural research. The DRS was used to measure family functioning from the perspective of the pregnant woman. Analyses from principal component analysis with varimax rotation (N = 271) reveal that the DRS contains two components with 21 items within each component instead of the proposed seven subscales. One component represents the positive side of the dyadic relationship; the other represents the negative. Though the DRS demonstrates both internal consistency and stability reliability, the involvement subscale has lower stability results. Issues relating to the use of the raw score or the standard score in the classification of normalfamily processes are addressed. Both the French and English versions of the DRS have similar reliability and validity qualities. We believe that the DRS can be used for research purposes to measure family functioning; however, the internal theoretical structure of the instrument needs to be reconceptualized.