Questionário de problemas familiares: desenvolvimento da versão portuguesa de um instrumento de avaliação de sobrecarga familiar

Probably due to the shift from institutional care to community care, the research has shown that informal carers (eg, family members) of patients with severe and long-term mental illness may experience an important psychological and emotional burden. Given that the family members are becoming such valuable resources as carers, it is crucial to assess their difficulties and needs, namely for the proposal of a psycho-educational intervention. In order to achieve this goal, several instrument focused on family burden assessment have been developed in the last years: in this paper, the authors report the development of the portuguese version of the "Family Problem Questionnaire-FPQ". After the back-translation procedures, a sample of 160 informal caregivers of patients with schizophrenia was evaluated using the FPQ: on a preliminar analysis, the results showed good acceptance and satisfactory psychometric properties. Thus, the FPQ seems to be potentially useful in a wide range of research and practical settings, including clinical and quality of care assessments, as well on the monitoring of psychoeducational interventions.