The Conflict Tactics Scale measure consists of 80 items developed by Straus (1979) to explore intrafamily conflict and violence, focusing particularly on the adults in the family. Of these 80 items, 20 are administered to the parent about his/her relationship with the child. The next 20 questions are directed to the parent about the partner and his/her interactions with the child. The last 40 questions of the measure address the interactions between the parent and the parent’s partner using the same questions.
The CTS is designed so that it can obtain data on all possible dyadic combinations of family members. Possible CTS combinations include husband-to-wife violence/conflict, wife-to-husband violence/conflict, parent-to-child violence/conflict and child-to-parent violence/conflict. Originally developed by Straus (1979), the CTS is a widely used (over 70,000 empirical studies have used it) and thoroughly evaluated (approximately 400 papers) measure of interpersonal aggression in married or cohabitating relationships.
The FAM-III is a self-report measure that assesses the strengths and weaknesses within a family. It can be completed by pre-adolescents, adolescents, and adult family members (ages 10 years to adult). The FAM-III consists of three types of forms: a 50-item General Scale that examines overall family health; a 42-item Dyadic Relationship Scale that examines how a family member views his or her relationship with other family members; and a 42-item Self-Rating Scale that allows each person to rate his or her own functioning within the family.
A 90-item inventory with 10 subscales that assess interpersonal relationships, personal development goals, and organizational structure. The Real Form (Form R) measures people’s perceptions of their actual family environments, the Ideal Form (Form I) rewords items to assess individuals’ perceptions of their ideal family environment, and the Expectations Form (Form E) instructs respondents to indicate what they expect a family environment will be like under, for example, anticipated family changes.
Bloom’s (1985) 75-item survey consisting of 15 scales reflecting family relationship, system maintenance, and personal growth dimensions. It has been used successfully to differentiate intact versus divorced families (Bloom, 1985). Scales measure family sociability; expressiveness; enmeshment; disengagement; conflict; cohesion; intellectual, recreation, and religious orientations; democratic, authoritarian, and laissez-faire decision-making styles; organization; external locus of control; and family idealization.
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is the most widely used psychological instrument for measuring the perception of stress. It is a measure of the degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful. Items were designed to tap how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded respondents find their lives. The scale also includes a number of direct queries about current levels of experienced stress.
This scale measures perception of neighborhood and existing problems. This scale asks questions related to neighborhoods having abandoned houses, gang fights, and vandalism.
This survey assesses being exposed to or have experienced violence. This survey asks questions related to being physically attacked, sexually assaulted, and fighting.
This survey can be used to assess domestic violence against pregnant women. This survey asks questions related to emotional and physical abuse towards a partner including being forced to have sexual activities. Leung, W.C., Leung, T.W., Lam, Y.Y.J., & Ho, P.C. (1999). The prevalence of domestic violence against pregnant women in a Chinese community. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 66, 23-30.