The testing and validation of the German version of the Impact on Family Scale in families with children with disabilities (Familien-Belastungs[FaBel]-Questionnaire)

Despite increased interest in the wellbeing of families with children with chronic conditions and disabilities, instruments to assess family impact of health conditions are still lacking in German speaking countries. The Impa ct on Family Scale has been developed in the Anglo-american literature as a self report instrument to assess the consequences of chronic conditions an d disability in childhood and adolescence for the family. The present paper describes the translation and psychometric testing of a German version of the Impact on Family scale (Familien-Belastungs[FaBel]-Questionnaire). The questionnaire contains 33 Likert-scaled items to assess the general negativ e impact of parents, the description of social relationships, the concern f or siblings, the financial impact and problems in coping as well as a total score. The FaBel questionnaire was used and tested for psychometric criter ia of reliability and validity in a cross-sectional study of 273 families w ith children with chronic conditions and disabilities. The results of this psychometric testing of the FaBel-Questionnaire show acceptance by responde rs, acceptable construct validity, good internal consistency and discrimina nt validity. The psychometric structure of the questionnaire corresponds wi th psychometric results with another German population of children with chr onic conditions. The results suggest the applicability of the instrument to assess family impact of chronic disease and disability in children and ado lescents.