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The Social Functioning Questionnaire: A Rapid and Robust Measure of

Perceived Functioning

Article  in  International Journal of Social Psychiatry · October 2005

DOI: 10.1177/0020764005057391 · Source: PubMed

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International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 51, No. 3, 265-275 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0020764005057391
© 2005 SAGE Publications

The Social Functioning Questionnaire: A Rapid and

Robust Measure of Perceived Functioning
Peter Tyrer

Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College (Charing Cross Campus), Claybrook Centre, St
Dunstan's Road, London, W6 8RP, UK.p.tyrer@imperial.ac.uk

Ula Nur

Mike Crawford

Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College (Charing Cross Campus), London, UK.

Saffron Karlsen

Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, Royal Free & University College Medical School, London, UK.

Claire MacLean

Bharti Rao

Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College (Charing Cross Campus), London, UK.

Tony Johnson

MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge, UK

Background: The Social Functioning Questionnaire (SFQ), an eight-item selfreport scale

(score range 0–24), was developed from the Social Functioning Schedule (SFS), a semi-
structured interview which has been used primarily with non-psychotic patients and has good
test-retest and inter-rater reliability as well as construct validity. The SFQ was developed
following the need for a quick assessment of perceived social function.

Aims: To give further details of old and new data sets from studies involving over 4000
subjects assessed with the SFQ illustrating its epidemiological and clinical associations.

Method: New data were analysed from a national epidemiological study, a comparison of
key-worker and subject versions of the SFQ, and reanalysis of data from three earlier clinical
studies, of psychiatric emergencies, general practice psychiatric patients and those with
recurrent psychotic illnesses. These data were examined further to determine their range, their
relationship to other clinical measures, and change over time in clinical trials.

Results: The population mean score in 4164 subjects was 4.6 and the data from all studies
suggested that a score of 10 or more indicated poor social functioning. Those presenting as
psychiatric emergencies had the poorest social function (mean 11.4) and psychiatric patients
from general practice the best function (mean 7.7) of the clinical populations. The eight item
scores had a normal distribution in psychiatric populations and a skewed one in a normal
population; scores were relatively stable over the short (weeks) and long-term (months), and

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 were high in the presence of acute mental health disturbance and personality disorder, giving
support to the validity of the scale. The results from a UK sample of a randomly selected
population specifically weighted for ethnic minorities showed similar social function across
groups.

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