Journal of Addiction and Dependence

Gather information on the functions and characteristics of families with substance abusers contributes to explore possible strategies to strengthen and change family behaviors. Investigate family resilience not only eases abroad understanding of familiar system, able of change and cope, but also underlines the need to include specific tools to develop desirable family attributes in the field of clinical and communitarian interventions. The Index of Regenerativity and Adaptation-General (FIRA-G) was developed to investigate dimensions of family functioning, including resilience. This paper aims to evaluate of FIRA-G reliability in a case-control study of 305 families from Sao Paulo with and without substance abuse members. Based on the methodology, there is no clear evidence that FIRA-G scale is a completely reliable instrument to measure components of family resilience, but it has proved valuable to compare differences between groups as the control group (M = 20.8; SD = 11.8) presented lower resilience condition than the alcohol group (M = 29.6; SD = 16). Thus, further studies should be conducted to assess samples living in different social conditions. *Corresponding author: Roberta Paya, Ph.D, Psychiatric Department, Psychologist and Msc Family Therapist, University Federal of Sao Paulo, Rua Dr. Veiga Filho, 350, conj 1007, Higienopolis, Sao Paulo, Brazil, CEP: 01229-901, E-mail: [email protected] Received Date: November 18, 2016 Accepted Date: December 16, 2016 Published Date: December 21, 2016