Measuring adult sibling communication comfort about sensitive issues

Abstract

The current study examined the relation between two sets of survey scale measures of adult sibling relationships. The first set of three scales assesses what adult siblings feel about, think about, and how they behave toward their siblings. These three subscales of the Lifespan Sibling Relationship Scales have established validity and reliability, with those psychometric properties confirmed in the current sample of 262 adults. The second set of nine survey items assess adult sibling comfort communicating with siblings about potentially sensitive issues and were developed by the authors for a larger longitudinal study, therefore had not been previously examined psychometrically. An exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors, comfort talking with siblings about family and life issues, both factors showed acceptable reliability. Those two factors were then used in structural equation models to explore associations with the three Riggio subscales. The final model revealed acceptable fit, ${\chi }^2$= 907.51, df = 467, p <.01; RMSEA =.06, C.I. =.05.-07; CFI =.93, IFI =.93, TLI =.91, and indicated that what adults feel about and how they behave toward their siblings was predictive of what they think about their siblings, which was in turn was predictive of their reported comfort communicating with their siblings about sensitive family and life topics.