What we do not know about families with children who have developmental disabilities: Questionnaire on Resources and...

A selective review of studies using the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (QRS) was presented in order to highlight current problems and future directions for research about families who are rearing children with developmental disabilities. Three primary difficulties--definitional problems, multiple measures of the same construct that do not converge, and failure to replicate--were high-lighted, and recommendations for approaches to solving them were provided. These approaches include the separation of demands, stresses, and strains, perhaps by a variation of the multitrait-multimethod technique, and more extensive norming and programmatic replication.