The 13 item Family Support Scale: Reliability and validity of the Greek translation in a sample of Greek health care professionals

BACKGROUND: The Julkunen Family Support Scale aims to record the sense of support that a subject receives from the members of his family. The object of the present study was to investigate the reliability and to assess the validity of the Greek translation of the Julkunen Family Support Scale in Greek health care professionals in a public general hospital. METHODS: In order to determine the indicator of validity of content we addressed nine expert professionals and one sociologist, asking them to evaluate how much relevant to the sense of familial support are the items of the questionnaire. Additionally, to assess reliability we used a sample of health care professionals. RESULTS: There was agreement among experts for the validity of content. Cronbach's alpha for the total items was 0.820, pointing to high validity. Only replacing item four could increase the scale's validity, but without significant differences. CONCLUSIONS: The scale, in its Greek version, appears to be a brief and reliable tool that can be used for inpatients, in clinics as well as in epidemiologic studies of received family support.