Tailoring Assessment of Relationship Distress Using the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Brief Form

Intimate relationship dysfunction is a core construct in both couple research and clinical practice. Thus, many instruments have been designed to measure key relationship factors, particularly global relationship distress. In lieu of constructing additional measures of relationship distress, the current investigation evaluated item properties of an existing measure of relationship functioning with the goal of revealing how particular items or groups of items might be used for a variety of clinical and research purposes. The current study drew on a nationally representative sample of 1,020 couples to evaluate a brief form of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (Whisman, Snyder, & Beach, 2009) using item response theory, a statistical framework that helps to maximize assessment utility by examining and leveraging item-level characteristics. Item response theory-based analyses suggested that, considered as a set, the 10 items on the scale offer considerable utility for distinguishing distressed from nondistressed couples. Also, individual items varied in the levels of underlying relationship distress at which they best discriminated. Implications of findings for clinical practice and further research are discussed.