Abstract

The Readiness to Seek Marital and Family Counselling (RSMFC) scale was developed to assess the readiness of parents of children with disabilities to engage in counselling services, addressing the complex familial and marital challenges they experience. This study represents Phase 1 of instrument development, focusing on content validation. Lawshe’s Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and the Content Validity Index (CVI) were employed to evaluate item essentiality, clarity, and relevance based on expert judgement. A panel of ten subject-matter experts reviewed 109 initial items, of which 99 items were retained following validation using thresholds of CVR ≥ 0.62 and CVI ≥ 0.70. The final scale is organised into six theoretically grounded stages of readiness: Pre-contemplation & Status Quo, Contemplation & Foreign Element, Preparation & Chaos, Action & New Options & Integration, Maintenance & Implementation, and Termination & New Status Quo. These stages reflect the dynamic and progressive nature of readiness to seek counselling. The RSMFC provides a culturally sensitive and theoretically grounded tool that can be used in counselling settings to assess readiness prior to intervention and to guide stage-appropriate support. However, as an early-stage instrument, further research is required to establish its construct validity, reliability, and factor structure through empirical testing with the target population.