Satisfaction with family life scale: a validity and reliability study in the Turkish context

The family is one of the most important pillars of society. They provide strong feelings of security, emotional support, and belonging. Family health has a significant impact on the welfare of people and society as a whole.

This study aimed to create the Satisfaction with Family Life Scale (SWFLS) for Türkiye by modifying the well-known Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) first developed by Diener et al. (1985) and to evaluate its psychometric properties.

The present study examined the factor structure, measurement invariance, convergent validity, and internal consistency of the SWFLS. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed on data from a research group of 646 participants aged 18-71 years (M = 31.71, SD = 11.79) in Study 1. As part of the validity assessment, CFA confirmed the unidimensional structure of the SWFLS. The reliability of the scale was assessed using Cronbach's alpha (α), composite reliability, and the McDonald 0mega (ω). In Study 2, the scale was administered to a new group of 555 participants aged 18 to 67 years (M = 36.4, SD = 9.73) to assess its criterion validity. Test-retest reliability was assessed using a sample of 48 undergraduate students via the intraclass correlation coefficient model 2.1 (ICC_2,1).

The CFA's results verified the SWFLS's single-factor model. The internal consistency coefficients of Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω were both 0.93. The composite reliability value was 0.94. The result of test-retest reliability (ICC2,1) was 0.96 and ranged from the ICC2,1 value of 0.85 to 0.90 for items of the SWFLS. Multigroup analysis supported full measurement invariance across genders for the SWFLS. Corrected item correlations ranged from 0.75 0.85. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) and SWFLS were shown to have a positive correlation (r = .483, p 0.001), which supports the idea that the two scales have similar convergent validity.

Based on these results, the Turkish SWFLS version can be utilized to measure family life satisfaction in the Turkish sample and has appropriate psychometric validity and reliability.