Measuring Family Support in Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Turkey: A Psychometric Investigation

Abstract

This study presents a reduced version of the Perception of Family Support Scale (PFSS)—a measure of family support designed for research and clinical purposes—and examine construct validity, invariance, and reliability evidence for scores obtained from the instrument. Data collection occurred in 2019. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with college student samples from Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Turkey (N = 1,256), we identified an oblique three-factor model corresponding to the original scale’s internal structure (e.g. affective consistency, family maladaptation, and family autonomy). We also found configural, metric, and scalar invariance, good reliability coefficients, and significant relationships with distress (e.g. depression, anxiety, and stress) across the four studied countries. These results indicate good validity evidence for using the brief version of the PFSS. Applications of the PFSS and implications of the current results are discussed.