Assessing the opinions of relatives on the causes and social consequences of different mental disorders: are instruments cross-culturally valid?

Obtaining valid information about the opinions of relatives on the causes and social consequences of mental disorders should be an important component in specifically tailoring therapeutic interventions for relatives according to their needs. The available range of instruments is small, however, the most prominent being the Italian Questionnaire on the Opinions of the Family (QOF), developed specifically for schizophrenic disorders. The German validation study of this instrument sought to determine whether the subscale structure of the QOF can be replicated in a group of relatives (N=161) of patients with schizophrenic disorders as well as recurrent depressive and bipolar disorders. Results demonstrate that the original QOF subscales cannot be transferred to groups of relatives of patients with affective disorders, nor to a German group of relatives of patients with only schizophrenic disorders. Therefore, a German version of the QOF was created. Using this modified version of the instrument, researchers established a three-factor solution differentiating the opinions of relatives on chronic mental disorders into three components, reflecting orientation towards pathology, towards normality and towards optimising resources for treatment. None of these factors showed significant relationships with the relatives' causal attributions about mental disorders. Further research is needed to establish cross-nationally valid versions of such instruments.