Ruark Allison, Chase Rachel, Hembling John, Davis Valerie Rhoe, Perrin Paul Clayton, Brewster-Lee Dorothy
Department of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America.
Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Nov 30;12(11):e0188561. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188561. eCollection 2017.
Available data suggest that individual and family well-being are linked to the quality of women's and men's couple relationships, but few tools exist to assess couple relationship functioning in low- and middle-income countries. In response to this gap, Catholic Relief Services has developed a Couple Functionality Assessment Tool (CFAT) to capture valid and reliable data on various domains of relationship quality. This tool is designed to be used by interventions which aim to improve couple and family well-being as a means of measuring the effectiveness of these interventions, particularly related to couple relationship quality. We carried out a validation study of the CFAT among 401 married and cohabiting adults (203 women and 198 men) in rural Chikhwawa District, Malawi. Using psychometric scales, the CFAT addressed six domains of couple relationship quality (intimacy, partner support, sexual satisfaction, gender roles, decision-making, and communication and conflict management), and included questions on intimate partner violence. We used exploratory factor analysis to assess scale performance of each domain and produce a shortened Relationship Quality Index (RQI) composed of items from five relationship quality domains. This article reports the performance of the RQI. Internal reliability and validity of the RQI were found to be good. Regression analyses examined the relationship of the RQI to outcomes important to health and development: intra-household cooperation, positive health behaviors, intimate partner violence, and gender-equitable norms. We found many significant correlations between RQI scores and these couple- and family-level development issues. There is a need to further validate the tool with use in other populations as well as to continue to explore whether the observed linkages between couple functionality and development outcomes are causal relationships.
现有数据表明，个人和家庭的幸福与男女伴侣关系的质量相关，但在低收入和中等收入国家，几乎没有工具可用于评估伴侣关系的功能。为应对这一差距，天主教救济服务组织开发了一种伴侣功能评估工具（CFAT），以获取关于关系质量各个领域的有效且可靠的数据。该工具旨在供旨在改善伴侣和家庭幸福的干预措施使用，作为衡量这些干预措施有效性的一种手段，特别是与伴侣关系质量相关的有效性。我们在马拉维奇夸瓦区农村的401名已婚和同居成年人（203名女性和198名男性）中对CFAT进行了一项验证研究。CFAT使用心理测量量表，涉及伴侣关系质量的六个领域（亲密关系、伴侣支持、性满意度、性别角色、决策以及沟通与冲突管理），并包括有关亲密伴侣暴力的问题。我们使用探索性因素分析来评估每个领域的量表性能，并生成一个由五个关系质量领域的项目组成的缩短版关系质量指数（RQI）。本文报告了RQI的性能。结果发现RQI的内部信度和效度良好。回归分析检验了RQI与对健康和发展重要的结果之间的关系：家庭内部合作、积极的健康行为、亲密伴侣暴力以及性别平等规范。我们发现RQI得分与这些伴侣和家庭层面的发展问题之间存在许多显著的相关性。有必要在其他人群中进一步验证该工具，并继续探索观察到的伴侣功能与发展结果之间的联系是否为因果关系。
