Adapting and Validating the Family Resilience Assessment Scale in an Afrikaans Rural Community in South Africa

A family resilience framework understands families as having the potential to not only face adversities but to overcome them; although its measurement is not always agreed upon. The aim of this study is to explain the processes involved in the adaptation of the 54-item family resilience assessment scale into Afrikaans, and to further examine its psychometric properties. Data were collected via the door-to-door method with the assistance of fieldworkers in two rounds. The pilot sample included 82 participants whilst the larger study included 656 participants. The internal consistency and construct validity was assessed using Cronbach’s alphas and Exploratory Factor Analysis implementing a Principal Component Analysis and Promax rotation, respectively. The factors which were found are similar to those of Sixbey’s, however, a new factor emerged replacing Maintaining a positive outlook which was named Family and community outlook. The processes described in this study facilitated the assessment of the feasibility and efficiency of the full-scale study and reduced the number of unanticipated problems associated with large sample data collection particularly using fieldworkers.