Family Emotional Involvement and Criticism Scale (FEICS): II. Reliability and Validity Studies This article is a report on a replication study of the reliability and validity of the Family Emotional Involvement and Criti- cism Scale (FEICS). A sample of 928 people (a 63% return rate for 1,480 mailed questionnaires) participated in the study. The sample was drawn from patients in a Family Medicine practice. FEICS consists of 14 items: 7 items assess Perceived Criticism (PC) and 7 items assess Emo- tional Involvement (EI). The scale was developed to assess, from the receipient's perspective; the two major variables of Expressed Emotion (EE), which are tradi- tionally assessed with an in-depth per- sonal interview. PC and EI both showed stable item structures and reliability. Cron- bach's alpha for PC was .82, and for EI was.76, which compare with .82 and. 74, respectively, that we found in our original study (50). Factor analyses examining the t All authors are affiliated with the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Drs. Shields and Harp are Assistant Professors of Family Medicine and Psychiatry; Dr. Franks is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine; Dr. Campbell is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Psychia· try; and Dr. McDaniel is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine. Send correspon- dence to Dr. Shields, Department of Family Medicine, University of Rochester/Highland Hospital, Family Medicine Center, 885 South Avenue, Rochester NY 14620 (internet CLVS(a DBl.CC.ROCHESTEREDUl. CLEVELAND G. SHIELDS, Ph.D.t PETER FRANKS, M.D. JEFFREY J. HARP, M.D. THOMAS L. CAMPBELL, M.D. SUSAN H. McDANIEL, Ph.D. item stability of the two scales again found the same factor structure as in the original study. Additional factor analyses compar- ing the factor structure of FEICS with FACES III, and with two subscales of the FAD, showed FEICS to have a stable factor structure even when compared to other family scales. FEleS has good criterion validity as shown through correlational analysis of its relationship with depressive symptoms, anxiety, and perceived health. Fam Syst Med 12:361-377, 1994 T HIS article is a second report examin- ing the reliability and validity of the Family Emotional Involvement and Criti- cism Scale (FEICS) that we developed in the context of our research on families and health 09-21, 50). FEICS was developed to assess, from the recipient's perspective, factors analogous to the Expressed Emo- tion (30) factors of Critical Comments (CC) and Emotional Overinvolvement (EOn. A recent review (22) catalogued the evidence that Expressed Emotion is an important predictor variable for outcome in schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disor- der, and childhood depression and behav- ioral disorders. The concept of Expressed Emotion (EE) was originally developed in Great Britain during studies of the home 361 Family Systems Medicine, Vol. 12, No.4, 1994 © FP, Inc.