Validation of the Revised Family Needs Survey (R-FNS) Scale for Families with Children with Special Needs

The aim of this study was to determine the validation of the Revised Family Needs Survey (R-FNS) Scale for families with children with special needs. The research method was descriptive-validation through development and validation of an instrument. The sample consisted of 100 families of special needs children who were selected from the special schools by available sampling method in the 2009 -2010 (1388-89s. c) academic year. Measuring instruments were the Revised Family Needs Survey (R-FNS) Scale (Bailey & Simeonsson، 1995)، and Family Needs Scale for Iranian Families (Nasiri and Samani، 2008/1387s. c.). To assess the results of the study، the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS-16) was used. Test of the internal consistency of the (R-FNS) scale، revealed that all 35 items for mothers (α= 0. 86)، and for fathers (α= 0. 81) were highly correlated with the total score. A re-administration of the measure 3 month later yielded high correlation (P<0. 001). Results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that all the variables are normally distributed. Content validity of the scale according to kendall''s coefficients of concordance for its subscales and total scores were statistically significant (P<0. 001). The results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that there are significant differences between mothers and fathers groups in information، family & social support، financial، explaining to others and child care components (P<0. 001). The significant correlations between the components and the total scores of (R-FNS) scale with (IFSN) scale w ere convenient and confirmed its validity. The finding showed that Persian version of (R-FNS) has good psychometrics properties in measuring the needs of families of children with special need.