Issues in the Assessment of Family Practice:

Four issues in the assessment of family practice are illustrated using data from thirty-nine two-parent families who completed a comprehensive battery of measures of dyadic and family functioning before and after family therapy. The four issues examined are (a) assessment of the directionality of therapeutic change. (b) the choice of family assessment models, (c) self-reports and/or behavioral observations, and (d) differences between family members and derived family scores. Results of the empirical examination of these issues confirm previous theoretical writings which have emphasized the complexity of family assessment. Implications for assessing outcomes in family practice are discussed, including the importance of multiple measures, multiple perspectives and data collection at a number of points in time.