Results
Title

Family Environment in Inner-City African-American and Latino Parents/Caregivers: A Comparison of the Reliability of Instruments.

Authors

Groenenberg, Iris; Sharma, Sushma; Green, Barbara; Fleming, Sharon

Abstract

Inner-city, African American and Latino youth are at higher risk for the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Interventions usually focus on changing physical activity and dietary behaviors, yet family environment has the potential to influence response to these interventions. We aimed to identify instruments that could reliably be used to assess the family environment of children from high-risk populations. Selected indices from four instruments were used; the Family Environment Scale (FES), the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales IV (FACES IV), the Self-report Family Inventory (SFI), and the Family Assessment Device (FAD). Out of 15 indices evaluated, 9 were reliable in both ethnicities including FES cohesion, conflict and organization, SFI emotional expressiveness, conflict and family health/competence, FACES IV family communication and family satisfaction, and FAD general functioning. Perceived family environment characteristics did not differ significantly for inner-city African American and Hispanic families.

Subjects

CALIFORNIA; ANALYSIS of variance; BLACK people; STATISTICAL correlation; ECOLOGY; HISPANIC Americans; METROPOLITAN areas; PARENT-child relationships; QUESTIONNAIRES; STATISTICAL sampling; SCALES (Weighing instruments); FAMILY relations; RESEARCH methodology evaluation; DATA analysis software; DESCRIPTIVE statistics

Publication

Journal of Child & Family Studies, 2013, Vol 22, Issue 2, p288

ISSN

1062-1024

Publication type

Academic Journal

DOI

10.1007/s10826-012-9578-0