The General Functioning Scale of the Family Assessment Device: Does it work with Chinese adolescents?

The reliability and validity of the General Functioning (GF) Scale of the C hinese version of the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD) were examined in three studies, In Study 1, data based on 361 adolescents showed that th e GF scale was temporally stable and internally consistent. and there was s upport for its concurrent and construct validities, In Study 2, data analyz ed from a clinical group and a nonclinical group (N = 281 and 451. respecti vely) showed that the GF scores were able to discriminate these two groups. With data pertaining to 3649 secondary-school students, Study 3 gives supp ort for the internal consistency, concurrent validity, and construct validi ty of the GF scale in different adolescent samples, These studies strongly suggest that the GF scale of the FAD possesses good psychometric properties in different Chinese adolescent samples. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.