The inventory of functional status-fathers. Development and psychometric testing

The Inventory of Functional Status-Fathers (IFS-F) was developed to measure the extent to which men continue or increase their usual household, social and community, childcare, personal care, occupational, and educational activities, and assume infant care responsibilities during their partners' pregnancies and the postpartum period. Content validity was established at 86%. Reliability testing used a sample of 125 expectant fathers and 57 new fathers. Internal consistency reliability using average correlations for the subscale item to subscale total scores ranged from .54 to .75. Subscale to total IFS-F score correlations ranged from .31 to .61. Initial construct validity testing was accomplished by examination of subscale correlations, which ranged from -.02 to .69. The IFS-F may be used to assess the functional status of men during the childbearing period for clinical and research purposes.