Psychometric Properties of the Mandarin Version of the Family Resilience Assessment Scale

Abstract

Families of children with developmental delay (DD) need to adapt to the child’s disability and make use of family strengths to maximize the child’s developmental potential. Family resilience (FR) is the level of capacity of a family to rebound from adversity. The purpose of this study was to develop the Mandarin Chinese version of the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (FRAS) and to examine the psychometric properties of the scale among families of children with DD in Taiwan. Independent translations, back-translations, and committee reviews were performed. A total of 502 primary caregivers of children with DD in Taipei were recruited as validation samples. Item analysis demonstrated that the critical ratio values of all 54 items were >3 (p < 0.001), except for one item, which was dropped from further analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis on the 53-item FRAS supported the original six-factor structure: family communication and problem solving, utilizing social and economic resources, maintaining a positive outlook, family connectedness, family spirituality, and ability to make meaning of adversity. Families that were good in “maintaining good interactive relationships” and “using effective coping strategies” had higher mean scores on the FRAS than their counterparts. The scale exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alphas were 0.96 for the overall scale and 0.68-0.96 for subscales) and test-retest reliability at a 2-week interval (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.88). The study confirmed that the Mandarin Chinese version of the FRAS is a reliable and valid instrument to assess FR in families of children with DD in Taiwan.