McMaster Family Assessment
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.
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Sources
- 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. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.1983.tb01497.x ↗
- Epstein, N. B., Bishop, D. S., & Levin, S. (1978). The McMaster Model of Family Functioning. Journal of Marriage and Family Counseling, 4(4), 19–31. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.1978.tb00537.x ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). McMaster Model Family Assessment and Family Assessment Device. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/social-work/mcmaster-family-assessment
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