Family Quality of Life Scale (FQLS-25)

Overview

The Family Quality of Life Scale (FQLS-25) is a multidimensional self-report psychometric instrument designed to assess the overall quality of life experienced by families, particularly those caring for a member with a disability, chronic illness, or other long-term health condition. Developed by Hoffman and colleagues (2006), the scale evaluates families’ subjective perceptions across several domains of family well-being, including emotional well-being, material resources, interpersonal relationships, social inclusion, and opportunities for personal development. The FQLS-25 has become one of the most widely recognized instruments for evaluating family-centered outcomes and is extensively used in healthcare, rehabilitation, psychology, social work, and disability research.

Objective

The primary objective of the Family Quality of Life Scale (FQLS-25) is to provide a reliable and valid assessment of family quality of life, enabling clinicians, researchers, and policymakers to understand how families perceive their well-being while living with disability or chronic illness.

Specifically, the FQLS-25 is designed to:

  • Assess families’ overall quality of life across multiple life domains.
  • Evaluate the impact of disability or chronic illness on family functioning and well-being.
  • Identify strengths and areas requiring additional support or intervention.
  • Measure the effectiveness of family-centered services and support programs.
  • Facilitate research on family resilience, psychosocial adaptation, and quality of life.

Scale Structure

The FQLS-25 consists of 25 self-report items that assess families’ perceptions of their quality of life across several essential dimensions of family functioning. Participants respond to each item using a standardized Likert-type response scale, with responses aggregated to generate both overall and domain-specific quality-of-life scores.

The principal domains evaluated by the questionnaire include:

  • Emotional well-being
  • Material well-being
  • Family relationships
  • Social inclusion
  • Personal development

The multidimensional structure of the instrument enables comprehensive assessment of both the family’s overall quality of life and specific aspects of family functioning that may benefit from intervention or additional support.

Applications

The Family Quality of Life Scale is widely used in clinical psychology, rehabilitation medicine, developmental disabilities, pediatric healthcare, family therapy, social work, public health, and disability services. It is particularly valuable for evaluating the well-being of families caring for children or adults with intellectual disabilities, developmental disorders, chronic medical conditions, or long-term functional limitations.

In clinical practice, the FQLS-25 assists multidisciplinary professionals in identifying family needs, planning individualized support services, monitoring intervention outcomes, and promoting family-centered care. In research, the instrument has been extensively employed to examine family adaptation, caregiver burden, resilience, psychosocial functioning, service effectiveness, and the influence of social support on family well-being. Furthermore, it provides evidence for evaluating public policies and community programs designed to improve the quality of life of families affected by disability or chronic illness.

Scoring and Psychometric Evaluation

Responses to the 25 questionnaire items are scored and summed to produce an overall Family Quality of Life score, while scores for individual domains can also be calculated to identify specific strengths and areas requiring intervention. Higher scores indicate better perceived family quality of life, reflecting greater well-being, stronger family relationships, improved social participation, and higher levels of satisfaction with family life.

The psychometric evaluation of the FQLS-25 includes assessments of internal consistency, typically using Cronbach’s alpha, together with analyses of construct and criterion validity through comparisons with established quality-of-life measures. Validation studies establish scoring guidelines and interpretative thresholds that support clinical decision-making and research applications. Although the uploaded document refers to these validation procedures, it does not report specific psychometric coefficients; therefore, precise reliability and validity indices cannot be presented.

Interpretation

Higher FQLS-25 scores indicate better perceived family quality of life, reflecting greater emotional well-being, stronger interpersonal relationships, improved material circumstances, enhanced opportunities for personal development, and greater social inclusion. Lower scores suggest that families may be experiencing challenges in one or more domains of family functioning and may benefit from additional psychosocial, healthcare, educational, or community-based support services. By providing a multidimensional assessment of family well-being, the FQLS-25 enables clinicians and researchers to identify priorities for intervention and evaluate the effectiveness of family-centered programs over time.

References

Hoffman, L., Marquis, J., Poston, D., Summers, J. A., & Turnbull, A. (2006). Assessing Family Quality of Life: The Development of the Family Quality of Life Scale (FQLS-25). Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 50(12), 965–976.

Samuel, P. S., Hobden, K. L., LeRoy, B. W., & Lacey, K. (2012). Family Quality of Life as a Measure of the Impact of Family Support Services for Families of Children with Disabilities. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 37(1), 57–66.

Zuna, N. I., Summers, J. A., Turnbull, A. P., Hu, X., & Xu, S. (2010). Theorizing About Family Quality of Life: Enhancing the Understanding of Families’ Well-Being in the Field of Early Intervention. Early Childhood Services, 4(1), 60–68.