The Self- and Other-Blame Scale (SOBS). The background and presentation ofa new instrument for measuring blame in families

This article presents an account of the development and reliability of an o bservational instrument to measure blame: the Self- and Other-Blame Scale ( SOBS). Fifty-one eating disordered patients together with eighty of their r elatives were interviewed using a semi-structured family interview. Videota pes were assessed by two independent raters, inter-rater reliability was go od for both dimensions of SOBS: self-blame (SB) and other-blame (OB). One o f the aims in developing the instrument was to be able to explore the relat ionship between self- and other-blame and criticism. Preliminary data are p resented shelving the distribution of SOBS scores within families rated as high or low on Expressed Emotion (EE). High EE was associated with high lev els of self-blame in the parents, but not in the patients. Fathers in high EE families were more blaming of the patient than those in Low EE families but this was not true for mothers' levels of daughter blaming.