A Comparison of Two Family Quality of Life Measures: An Australian Study

Family Quality of Life (FQOL) research partly stemmed from government policies in the 1970s promoting deinstitutionalization, resulting in increasing numbers of families becoming responsible for the primary care and support of their relative with an intellectual disability. Research has indicated that families have not necessarily been prepared for the duration and intensity of this care, leading to added demands on disability services to provide such families with support. Consequently, there has grown a need to evaluate FQOL. This chapter describes two internationally developed FQOL survey measures; the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale (Beach Center on Disability, 2003) and the international Family Quality of Life Survey: Main caregivers of people with intellectual disabilities (I. Brown et al., 2006), and discusses their concurrent use within Australia. Both surveys made use of similar FQOL domains associated with Emotional, Material, and Physical Well-Being; Family Relationships; and Disability Services, but there are also some differences throughout the scales. While both surveys resulted in relatively comprehensive FQOL data, some components relevant to FQOL were included in one survey but not the other, such as “Transportation,” “Parenting,” and “Influence of Values.” In addition, while both surveys used the measurement concepts Importance and Satisfaction, the International Survey also measured Opportunities, Initiative, Attainment, and Stability. The evaluation of these two instruments carried out in the present study supports the importance of measuring FQOL using mixed-methods in an interview format where possible, and it also provides suggestions for how these measures could be improved to better identify what makes up a life of quality for these families as well as the support needed to improve the QOL of families who have a member with a intellectual disability.