Assessing the Quality of Personal Relationships

TLDR

The study investigates the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI) as a measure of support, conflict, and depth in specific family and peer relationships. Two studies were conducted, assessing QRI scales in specific family and peer relationships to evaluate internal consistency, stability, agreement, and predictive validity. The QRI scales demonstrated high internal consistency, stability over one year, moderate inter‑rater agreement, and predicted depressive symptoms and observers’ judgments of conflict, supporting its reliability and construct validity.

Abstract

We report two studies investigating the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI), a self-report measure of support, conflict, and depth in specific family and peer relationships. Study 1 showed that the QRI scales possess high internal consistency, are stable across a period of 1 year, show moderate agreement between participants' perceptions of the same relationship, and predict depressive symptoms beyond the contribution made by measures of general perceived support. In Study 2, adult children's and their mothers' QRI scales assessing the quality of their relationship with one another, but not with other family members or friends, predicted observers' global judgements of their behavior as they discussed a current source of conflict in their relationship. These studies suggest the reliability and construct validity of the QRI scales as measures of the quality of specific relationships. The implications of these results for the conceptualization and assessment of personal relationships are discussed.