Family Functioning in Pediatric Primary Care Patients.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric primary care
• Family psychology
• Psychometric evaluation

Background:

• Assessing family functioning is crucial in pediatric primary care.
• Brief, reliable measures are needed for routine clinical settings.
• The Family Assessment Device-General Functioning (FAD_GF) is a potential tool.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot the Family Assessment Device-General Functioning (FAD_GF) measure.
• To assess family functioning in caregivers of children aged 2-18 years.
• To evaluate the FAD_GF's psychometric properties in a pediatric primary care sample.

Main Methods:

• Psychometric evaluation of the FAD_GF in 400 families.
• Confirmatory factor analysis using R for validation.
• Weighted least squares means and variance (WLSMV) estimation for missing data.

Main Results:

• The FAD_GF demonstrated high reliability (α = .90).
• Excellent model fit indices (RMSEA = .01, CFI = .99) support the FAD_GF's structure.
• Family functioning explained over 20% of the variance in FAD_GF items (R² > .25).
• 12.6% of families were identified with clinically impaired family functioning.

Conclusions:

• The FAD_GF is a reliable and valid brief measure for assessing family functioning in pediatric primary care.
• Results support the use of FAD_GF for identifying families needing further support.
• The FAD_GF enables evidence-informed decisions for referrals to family therapists.