In an attempt to make social work evidence based, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, has recommended the use of standardized methods. As there are very few instruments that are defined as standardized, we decided to compile studies made with the "Family Climate self-rating scale", FCS, that is used by the profession, although not yet validated. We were looking for conformity in results and functionality in family treatment. FCS comprises a list of 85 adjectives to reflect different aspects of the emotional atmosphere in the family. It has been used since the late 80´s and there has been no attempt to compile results of using the instrument, until now.By searching in databases and libraries we found 20 Swedish studies using the instrument, which we compared to each other.