Abstract:

Background/aim: The present study aimed to develop a reliable and valid assessment tool for measuring family functioning in rehabilitation. Materials and methods: Semistructured interviews were performed with 100 rehabilitation professionals working in pediatrics to identify the feature to be measured. The items determined with the qualitative analysis of the data were presented to 14 experts and content validity was provided. The questionnaire created based on the judgments of the experts was administered to 440 parents of children with special needs. Results: After validity and reliability analysis, the final version of the questionnaire comprised 48 items with four factors identified as awareness, attitude and behavior, social participation, and engagement in rehabilitation. These factors explained 49.94% of the total variance and the factor loadings ranged from 0.492 to 0.773. Internal consistency reliability calculated with the Cronbach alpha coefficient was found to be 0.943. The test-retest reliability coefficient between the two administrations with a two-week interval was found as 0.772. Conclusion: The findings of the study showed that the newly developed Family Functioning Questionnaire in Rehabilitation met the criteria for examining the role of families of children with special needs in rehabilitation programs and had adequate psychometric properties.

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