Quick, simple measures of family relationships for use in clinical practice and research. A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Family functioning has been implicated in the onset of child and adult psychopathology. Various measures exist for assessing constructs in the areas of parent–child relationships, parental practices and discipline, parental beliefs, marital quality, global family functioning and situation-specific measures. Objectives: To identify systematically all questionnaire measures of family functioning appropriate for use in primary care and research. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted, following PRISMA guidelines and searching 14 bibliographic databases using pre-determined filters, to identify family functioning measures suitable for use in families with children from 0 to 3 years old. Results: One hundred and seven measures of family functioning were reported and tabulated and the most commonly used measures were identified. Conclusions: There are numerous measures available demonstrating characteristics, which make them suitable for continued use. Future research is needed to examine the more holistic measurement of family functioning using integration of multi-informant data.