The FAD General Functioning subscale is a 12-item scale that measures general family functioning. This scale was initially developed to fit within the McMaster Model of Family Functioning. The full measure is 60 items, but the general functioning subscale used in our study has been suggested to be the best summary score of family functioning (Ridenour et al. 1999). Our twelve items map onto items 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41, 46, 51 and 56 of the full measurement. Some references are below:

• Byles, J., Byrne, C., Boyle, M.H., & Offord, D.R. (1988). Ontario-Child-Health-Study -Reliability and Validity of the General Functioning Subscale of the McMaster Family Assessment Device. Family Process, 27, 97-104.
• Miller, I.W., Bishop, D.S., Epstein, N.B., & Keitner, G.I. (1985). The McMaster Family Assessment Device - Reliability and Validity. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 11, 345-356.
• Ridenour, T.A., Daley, J.G., & Reich, W. (1999). Factor analyses of the family assessment device. Family Process, 38, 497-510.

Citation reference:

• Epstein, N.B., Baldwin, L.M., & Bishop, D.S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9, 171-180.

Participants were asked to think about how well each item describes their family. Responses ranged from 'Strongly Agree” to 'Strongly Disagree”. Only 6 of the questions had a response category which was endorsed less than 5% (majority of these items were between above 2% of the sample). All four categories were in creating the subsequent scale. Items 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11 were reversed scored. The low scores indicate better family functioning.