Developing the Family Involvement Questionnaire-Long-Term Care (FIQ-LTC): A Measure of Family Involvement in the Lives of Residents at Long-Term Care Facilities

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2019

Abstract

Introduction

Existing measures designed to assess family involvement in the lives of older adults residing in long-term care facilities are basic, using visitation frequency as the prominent gauge of involvement in a situation specific fashion. The purpose of this study was to design and validate a measure of family involvement that could be used to gauge more aspects of family involvement than visitation alone and be useful in a variety of settings for both researchers and long-term care facility administrators. Methods

Long-term facility staff were asked to assist in creating a 40-item questionnaire that used 4-point Likert scales to measure various aspects of family involvement. The finalized Family Involvement Questionnaire-Long-Term Care (FIQ-LTC) was distributed to the family members of older adults residing in long-term care facilities around the country. Results

A total of 410 participants responded. Researchers found that the FIQ-LTC was highly reliable (α = .965). Results also indicated that a significant correlation between distance and overall involvement (r = −.121, p = .015) was no longer significant (r = .17, p = .740) when the effect of a question asking the frequency of visitation was controlled for. Discussion

These results indicate that existing measures that use visitation frequency as the sole measure of involvement are insufficient. The newly developed FIQ-LTC can serve as a more complete measure of family involvement.

Department

Psychology

Publication Title

The Gerontologist

DOI

10.1093/geront/gnx197

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