Familism - the concept, measure and importance for mental health

The aim of the conducted research was to determine the psychometric properties of the Polish adaptation of the Scale of Familism.

The research included 580 persons (339 women and 241 men) aged 18-81 years (M = 35; SD = 15.49). The applied research tools included the Scale of Familism, the Scale of Materialism and the Agentic and Communal Orientation Scale.

The factor structure analysis of the Scale of Familism performed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not confirm the adequacy of the fit of the assumed model to the data. The results of the exploratory principal component analysis (EFA) indicated the existence of five dimensions that explained 51.14% of variance in results. They included: Respect (α= 0.91), Material success and achievements (α = 0.87), Religion (α = 0.95), Individualism (α = 0.63), and Family support (α = 0.70). Construct validity of the Scale of Familism was verified by analyzing correlations between the separate scales and the scores on the Agentic and Communal Orientation Scales and the Scale of Materialism. The obtained correlation coefficient values were weak, yet in line with the expected direction.

The Polish adaptation of the scale designed for examining familism is atool characterized by good psychometric properties, which enables a multidimensional measure of the psychological aspects of familism in adulthood. It can be recommended for use in scientific research as well as therapeutic practice.