Development of Relational Turbulence Scale for Young Married Individuals

The present study was intended to develop a measure of relational turbulence for the young married individuals in Pakistan’s cultural framework. In the first phase of developing scale, 19 semi-structured interviews were taken from married individuals. The married individuals were taken with inclusion criteria of 1-5 years marital duration and age between 21- 40 years to generate an item pool that encompassed 45 items. Based on connection, similarity or matching themes, 29 items were finalized after 11 experts’ validation and piloted on 8 participants. To determine psychometric properties of scale, Relational Turbulence Scale (RTS) was presented along with demographic sheet to 156 young married individuals (67 men, 89 women) with age range 21-40 years. Principal Component Analysis of RTS comprised of three different factors namely Lack Understanding, Apprehensions, and Lack of Support. Moreover, RTS was found to have high internal consistency (.83), test-retest reliability. 83 (p <. 001), split half reliability of. 82 (p <. 001), and acceptable convergent validity. Furthermore, results are discussed in context of factor structure of RTS, demographics, and risk factors as predictors of RTS in cultural context.