The Japanese version of the Family Accommodation Scale for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Psychometric properties and clinical correlates

Abstract

Although a variety of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-related family pathologies, such as family accommodation, may exist in Japanese OCD patients, few studies on this topic have been conducted, and a validated assessment tool is not available in Japan. The Family Accommodation Scale (FAS) is the most widely used measure of accommodation behavior in OCD patients. The aims of this study were to develop a Japanese version of the FAS—Self-Rated Version (FAS-SR), to examine its reliability and validity, and to study the clinical correlates of family accommodation in OCD. We subsequently examined the psychometric properties of the Japanese version of the FAS-SR in a sample of 41 Japanese OCD patients and 41 relatives. The Japanese version of the FAS-SR demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. It showed good convergent and divergent validity when concomitantly assessed with other measures, such as OCD symptom severity, functional impairment, family functioning, psychological distress, a variety of psychiatric symptoms and cognitive-reflection-impulsivity. Additionally, family psychopathology, especially somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, depression, hostility and psychoticism, were significantly correlated with family accommodation in OCD. The Japanese version of the FAS-SR has acceptable psychometric properties for assessing family accommodation in Japanese patients with OCD in both research and clinical settings.