Development and validation of a goal attainment scale for families affected by maternal substance use

The Team for Infants Exposed to Substance use (TIES) Program is a longstanding home-based family support program that provides a multidisciplinary, community-facing model to address the complex needs of families with young children affected by maternal substance use. The model required a comprehensive assessment tool to guide creation of individualized family goals with steps to achievement and measurement of progress on those goals. This article describes the development of a goal attainment scale and the analysis conducted to validate the scale for the service population. TIES model developers and community partners developed the goal attainment scale to assess outcomes in key domains: maternal substance use, parenting, child and maternal health, income, and housing. Data were collected from 2012 to 2019 from 220 participants and analyzed in 2020. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted. Twenty-five of the original 30 items were retained in a six-factor structure. The total percentage of variance explained was 64.44% with six factors, and Cronbach's alpha was .90. For the split-half method, the reliability of scale was .90 for unbiased conditions. Therefore, the scale reached acceptable reliability and validity. The scale provides a comprehensive approach to measure family outcomes across multiple domains addressing key risk and protective factors. This family-centered scale serves both therapeutic and evaluation purposes, acting as an intervention guide and a goal attainment measurement tool.