Methoden vergleichen

	McMaster Family Assessment	Social Support Assessment
Fachgebiet	Social Work	Social Work
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Entstehungsjahr	1983	1988
Urheber	Nathan B. Epstein, Duane S. Bishop & colleagues (McMaster University)	Multiple traditions; perceived-support scale by Zimet et al., buffering theory by Cohen & Wills
Typ	Theory-based assessment of family functioning across defined dimensions	Assessment of the structure, function, and perceived adequacy of a client's social support
Wegweisende Quelle	Epstein, N. B., Baldwin, L. M., & Bishop, D. S. (1983). The McMaster Family Assessment Device. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9(2), 171–180.	Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52(1), 30–41.
Aliasnamen	McMaster Model of Family Functioning, McMaster Family Assessment Device, MMFF, McMaster Approach to Family Assessment	Social Support Measurement, Perceived Social Support Assessment, Social Support Network Assessment, Social Support Inventory
Verwandt	4	4
Zusammenfassung	McMaster family assessment is a theory-driven approach to evaluating how a family functions, organized around the McMaster Model of Family Functioning and operationalized in the widely used Family Assessment Device. Developed by Nathan Epstein, Duane Bishop, and colleagues at McMaster University, it assesses families on six dimensions — problem solving, communication, roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement, and behavior control — plus an overall general-functioning scale, each scored from family-member self-report against clinical cutoffs that distinguish healthy from unhealthy functioning.	Social support assessment is the systematic appraisal of the people and resources a client can draw on, the kinds of support they provide, and how adequate that support feels relative to the client's needs. Drawing on the structural-functional theory of support and on validated instruments such as the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, it gives social workers a structured way to map who is in a client's network, what emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support those ties offer, and where gaps leave the client vulnerable — information that is central to strengths-based intervention and care planning.