Introduction:

the validation of a family assessment instrument for patients with eating disorders is a crucial process to ensure the reliability and validity of the results. This tool helps to understand the family dynamics being fundamental for an effective and personalized intervention.

Objective:

to validate an instrument based on the “psycho-dynamic systemic model of family evaluation” for patients with eating disorders.

Material and methods:

the sample was non-probabilistic consisting of 272 patients (90% women) and their families with an age range of 9 to 73 years (18.07 ± 7.01); patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating disorder, other specific eating disorder and unspecified eating disorder were included. All the participants answered two instruments that evaluated family functioning.

Results:

an adequate internal consistency of the instrument was observed and the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) showed a one-dimensional structure explaining 30.29% of the total variability. Convergent validity was analyzed, which was positive and significant with the APGAR-family in the different subscales and in the total score of the instruments.

Conclusion:

these results contribute to the development of a measure to assess family structure in patients with eating disorders and provide a reliable and valid tool for clinical work with families of these patients.