Abstract: Objective: To revise Family Adaptation Scale, which was developed by Antonovsky based on the McCubbin's definition of family adaptation, and to test the validity and reliability of the scale in families of patients in old age with moderate to severe dementia. Methods: The Family Adaptation Scale was translated based on Brislin translation model, and enriched based on McCubbin's definition of family adaptation in 2001. Six experts were invited to further revise the scale and evaluate the content validity. A total of 215 families of patients with moderate to severe dementia were enrolled to test the construct validity and reliability of revised Chinese version of the Family Adaptation Scale. Results: The revised Chinese version of the Family Adaptation Scale included 15 items. The S-CVI was 1.00, and each I-CVI was 1.00. Three factors (family's interpersonal relationships, family's structure and function, family's relationship to the community and the natural environment) were extracted from items by the factor analysis via the maximum orthogonal rotation, the cumulative contribution rate was 71.404%. Cronbach's α coefficient for the scale was 0.951, Cronbach's α coefficient for three dimensions was 0.901, 0.885, 0.860. Split-half reliability for the scale was 0.930, and 0.916, 0.866, 0.861 for each dimension. Conclusion: The revised Chinese version of the Family Adaptation Scale has good validity and good reliability which can be used to evaluate the family adaptation level of the family of dementia patients in old age in China.

Key words: Family Adaptation Scale; reliability; validity; patients with dementia