Development of the Expectations of Filial Piety Scale--Spanish version

This paper reports the development of the Expectations of Filial Piety Scale for use with Hispanic/Latino parents regarding their expectations of care and support from their adult children.

Filial piety, a term used to describe a set of family values in relation to parental care and respect, has strong cultural underpinnings. To date, there have been no measures of this construct for use with Hispanic/Latino populations.

A convenience sample of 318 Hispanic/Latino adults in North Carolina and Texas in the United States of America completed a brief biographical survey and field-tested a new Spanish version of the Expectations of Filial Piety Scale in 2003.

Principal component factor analysis with orthogonal rotation (varimax method) was used to extract four factors, which accounted for 60% of the variance in scale scores. These factors were: I, respect for parents (23.6%); II, honouring parents (12.5%); III, supporting parents (11.9%); and IV, family unity (11.7%). Overall scale reliability was 0.82, with individual factor reliability coefficients ranging from 0.66 to 0.84.

Increasingly, large numbers of Hispanic/Latino elders will look to their families for support as they reach advanced ages. Culturally relevant translations of family caregiving constructs, such as filial piety, will be essential nursing tools for clinical practice and in developing contemporary family caregiver research agendas.