Inventing & validation of a new family scale; Asian family characteristics scale & skala ciri kekeluargaan Asia

• Main Authors: Musa, Ramli, Md Aris, Mohd Aznan, Draman, Samsul, Abdullah, Kartini
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare; RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/38429/5/IRIIE_2012_-_Gold.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/38429/8/IRIIE2012_DrRamli.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/38429/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Introduction; Research in the field of family study in Malaysia is facing a setback as there is no validated instrument to explore the family environment. The intensifying social related problems such as illegal racing, substance misuses, conduct disorder, physical and sexual abuse, indicate that exploration on family environment is essential. The idea to invent a new scale was triggered based on poor outcomes of previous research project “Translation and Validation of the Family Environment Scale (FES) Questionnaire” which was funded by Ministry of Health Malaysia (HKL/98/CRC/ER/180/07) [Publication; Khairani & Ramli M et al]. The results of this project show that direct translation and adopting of western questionnaire is not always feasible as Asian family values are different. Objectives: To invent and validate a new family scale (English & Bahasa Malaysia) that will be reliable and validated for the Malaysian population. Methodology; The development of the questionnaire can be divided into 6 stages; (1) Identifying the domains of harmony family and disharmony family, (2) Identify items for each domain, (3) language experts review, (4) pretest on the final version, (5) pilot study with small number of subjects and (6) actual validation of the questionnaire to a total of 600 subjects from various ethnic groups, age and level of education. Results; 588 participants; 86 % were Malays, 14% Chinese. 59% were females & 43% obtained secondary education. Reliability; Cronbach’s alpha of 0.9 and 5 domains were identified by using explanatory factor analysis with Varimax rotation. Validity; From 43 items, 67% had good factor loading (>0.4). Conclusion; The new scale has good psychometric properties and it is valid as a family scale for Malaysian population.