Friendship questionnaire: Free template

Key takeaways

A friendship questionnaire measures what a client’s friendships actually do for them, not how many friends they have.

Three validated instruments cover most clinical needs: the Friendship Quotient, the McGill Friendship Questionnaire, and the Friendship Habits Questionnaire.

The McGill instrument scores six dimensions, so you get a profile of a client’s friendships rather than a single number.

Therapists use these forms at intake to spot isolation, then re-run them every eight to twelve weeks as an outcome measure.

Practice management software like Pabau can send the questionnaire before a session and file the results in the client record.

Therapists and counselors need a fast read on a client’s social world. Presenting symptoms only tell you part of it. What matters clinically is who the client can call, what happens when they do, and whether isolation is feeding the distress. A short rating form gives you those answers in five minutes, and it gives you a number you can compare against later.

This guide covers what the questionnaire measures and which validated instruments exist. It also shows you how to score the results, how to adapt the form by age, and where it fits in your intake workflow.

What is a friendship questionnaire?

A friendship questionnaire is a structured rating form that measures how a client experiences their friendships. It replaces the open question about how many friends someone has. Instead it asks about specific functions of friendship, such as companionship, help, intimacy, and emotional security.

In clinical practice it does three jobs. It shows you whether social disconnection is feeding a client’s anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem. It shows you which parts of their friendships work and which parts do not. A client with plenty of company can still register as unsupported. And it gives you a baseline to revisit when you want evidence that therapy has moved something.

The format does most of the work. Rating statements on a fixed scale produces a number, and a number can be compared. Digital questionnaire forms sent before an intake session mean the baseline is waiting for you when the client walks in.

Three validated instruments and what each one measures

Three instruments dominate the research, and they measure different things. Knowing which is which stops you reaching for the wrong one.

The Friendship Quotient (FQ) came out of autism research at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, where Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright developed it. It measures how much value a person places on close, empathic friendship. A high score describes someone who wants intimacy, disclosure, and mutual support from their friends. A low score describes friendships built more around shared activity than shared feeling.

The McGill Friendship Questionnaire (MFQ) is the one most therapists reach for in general practice. It breaks friendship into six distinct dimensions: stimulating companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, self-validation, and emotional security. That gives you a profile instead of a total, so you can see which function of friendship is failing the client.

The Friendship Habits Questionnaire (FHQ) is the newest of the three and was published in PLOS ONE in 2023. It asks whether a client socializes in groups or one to one. Neither answer is a deficit, which makes it a useful counterweight when a client’s social style looks unusual rather than impaired.

What does a friendship questionnaire measure?

It measures the jobs a friendship performs for the client. The McGill instrument’s six subscales give the clearest breakdown:

• Stimulating companionship: Whether time with friends is enjoyable and energizing. A low score often means the client sees people but comes away flat.
• Help: Whether friends offer guidance and practical support when something goes wrong. Deficits here track closely with anxiety.
• Intimacy: Whether the client can be open about feelings, weaknesses, and successes. Trauma survivors frequently score lowest on this one.
• Reliable alliance: Whether the client trusts the friendship to hold. A low score suggests they expect to be dropped.
• Self-validation: Whether friends affirm the client’s worth and identity. A low score can mean the client is surrounded by critical people.
• Emotional security: Whether friends provide comfort and confidence in unfamiliar or difficult situations. Low scores tend to show up as social avoidance.

Scoring each dimension separately gives you something specific to say back to the client, which is what drives patient engagement. Telling a client their self-validation subtotal sits at the bottom of their profile opens a better conversation than telling them they seem lonely.

Sample items and how the rating scale works

The template above uses one seven-point scale throughout, where 1 means not at all and 7 means very much so. Its 17 statements cover the same ground as the longer instruments, in language a client can work through quickly. Here is a sample, with the dimension each item speaks to:

• How easy do you find discussing your feelings with your friends? (intimacy)
• How important is it for your friends to validate and support your emotions? (self-validation)
• How often do you engage in shared activities or hobbies with your friends? (companionship)
• How well do you handle conflicts or disagreements within your friendships? (reliable alliance)
• How comfortable do you feel setting boundaries with your friends? (emotional security)

The validated instruments run longer, from 23 items in the FHQ to 35 in the FQ. Their scales differ too. The MFQ uses nine points and the FHQ seven, so scores from the two are not interchangeable. Pick one form and one scale, then stay with it, or your comparison across sessions falls apart.

How to score and interpret the results

Scoring differs slightly between instruments, but the sequence is the same one every time.

1. Set aside the contrast items: Two statements on the template ask about strangers rather than friends. A high rating there means something different, so score them separately from the rest.
2. Group the items into dimensions: Total the statements belonging to each dimension described above. Write those subtotals on the form so the profile is visible at a glance.
3. Compare the client to themselves first: This template carries no published norms. Use the first administration as the client’s own baseline, then measure every later score against it.
4. Read the profile, not the total: A client can score well overall and still have one dimension on the floor. That dimension is usually where the therapy goes.

Medical forms in your practice software can carry the arithmetic for you. Build the subtotals into the form and the numbers arrive already added up, with a flag on any score you have marked as clinically significant.

How clinicians put the results to work

The form earns its keep as a conversation starter and an outcome measure. It fits several therapy contexts:

• At intake: Run it in the first or second session to set a baseline. Clients write things down that they would not say out loud, such as having nobody to call when they are upset.
• In anxiety and depression work: Friendship quality usually moves with mood. Rising companionship and help subtotals make a decent proxy for progress.
• In social skills groups: Use it before the group starts and again after it ends. It shows whether confidence inside the room turned into contact outside it.
• In autism and ADHD assessment: The FQ and FHQ help separate a different social style from a genuine difficulty. That distinction changes what you recommend.
• In couples and family work: Individual scores show how supported each partner feels outside the relationship. Isolation there is a risk factor worth naming early.

Where the client is new to your practice, pair the form with a broader comprehensive assessment so the friendship scores sit in context. Patient portals that deliver forms ahead of the appointment let the client answer at home, unhurried, which usually produces franker ratings.

Adapting the form for adults, teens, and children

Friendship works differently at different ages, so the wording and the item count move with the client.

Psychology practice software with editable forms lets you keep one version per age band, so nobody hands a 14-year-old an instrument written for adults. When an adolescent’s ratings point to friendships that feel unsafe, a setting boundaries worksheet makes a natural follow-up exercise.

Using the template in your practice

The download above is a ready-to-use clinical form, built along the lines of the Cambridge FQ. Here is how to get value out of it:

1. Print it or send it digitally: The form runs to two pages and 17 rated statements. Hand it out at reception, or send it through your client portal a day before the appointment.
2. Score it with the client in the room: Reading the ratings back turns a form into a conversation. Ask about any statement they hesitated over.
3. Record the subtotals somewhere durable: The PDF has no built-in scoring sheet, so put the dimension totals in the client record. Clinical progress notes keep them beside the session they came from.
4. Re-administer every 8 to 12 weeks: A companionship subtotal moving from 12 to 18 is evidence that your social skills work has landed. A client saying they feel better is not.
5. Fold the result into your notes: AI-powered clinical documentation can summarize the change in a line. Intimacy up four points, companionship flat, barriers to initiating contact discussed.

How to customize it for your client population

The form is deliberately modular. Four adaptations cover most caseloads:

• Neurodiverse clients: Add a line saying that fewer, deeper friendships are a valid pattern. Read a low companionship subtotal as a preference until the client tells you otherwise.
• Trauma survivors: Add an item about physical safety around friends. Where friendship is absent because of relational trauma, attachment work comes before social skills work.
• Couples work: Split the statements into friendships each partner holds alone and friendships they hold together. That shows who has support outside the relationship.
• Group settings: Swap the word friends for group members to measure belonging inside a social skills or peer support group.

Therapy practice management tools with editable form fields let you keep these variants side by side. You pick the right version when the appointment is booked, rather than hunting for it on the morning.

How Pabau handles questionnaire delivery, scoring, and storage

Most practices run this on paper. Reception prints the form, the client fills it in while the waiting room fills up, and someone totals the ratings by hand. The sheet goes into a folder afterwards, where nobody ever compares it to the previous one.

Practice management software like Pabau moves that loop into the client record. You build the questionnaire once as a digital form, then send it out through the client portal before the appointment. Every completed form is saved against the client with the date attached, so nothing depends on a filing cabinet.

Because the responses sit next to the treatment notes, the second administration lands beside the first. You can read the movement without opening a spreadsheet. Pabau Scribe, our AI scribe, can carry that change straight into the session note while you write it.

The result is a client who answers honestly at home, and a therapist who starts the session already knowing where the work needs to go.

Collect questionnaire scores before the client arrives

Pabau’s digital forms and client records deliver assessments ahead of the appointment and store every response against the client. Repeat scores sit side by side, so progress is visible without a spreadsheet.

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Conclusion

Which instrument you choose matters less than the discipline of using one twice. A single friendship score tells you where a client stands today. Two scores, 12 weeks apart, tell you whether the work you did between them changed anything.

One caution is worth carrying into every interpretation. A low score is a finding, not a diagnosis. Some clients keep a small social world on purpose, and neurodivergent clients often rate low on items written around group socializing. Ask before you conclude.

So download the form, run it at intake, and put a date in the calendar to run it again. Book a demo to see how Pabau sends questionnaires out before the session and files the scores in the client record.

Continue your research

Want to track how friendship and social connection scores change across sessions? Patient care management best practices show how sharing outcome scores with clients strengthens the therapeutic alliance and supports collaborative treatment planning.

Need questionnaire scores captured in the client record without manual re-entry? Clinical notes AI shows how AI-assisted documentation turns assessment results into structured notes automatically.

Administering this questionnaire during a remote session? HIPAA compliant telehealth platforms covers what a therapy practice needs in place to deliver and score assessments securely online.

Working with a teenager whose self-validation subtotal came back low? Self-esteem worksheet for teens gives you a follow-up exercise that targets the same dimension.

Turning a low subtotal into a therapy goal? Intention setting worksheet helps clients commit to specific social steps between sessions.

Frequently asked questions