Introduction
| There are two different resilience scales available in PsyToolkit, this one and the BRS. |
Resilience is the ability to cope with difficulties. The term resilience is often used in the medical world to describe patients' coping ability.
| There are many self-help videos about resilience on YouTube, like this one. Resilience is also an important part of positive psychology. |
Windle and colleagues (2011) wrote a great review paper about resilience scales, and concluded:
We found no current ‘gold standard’ amongst 15 measures of resilience. On the whole, the measures developed for adults tended to achieve higher quality assessment scores. Future research needs to focus on reporting further validation work with all the identified measures. A choice of valid resilience measures for use with different populations is urgently needed to underpin commissioning of new research in a public health, human-wellbeing and policy context.
One of the best and highly recommended (Windle et al., 2011) resilience scales is Brief Resilience Scale by Smith and colleagues. Another brief resilience scale, the Brief Resilience Coping Scale, was created by Sinclair and Wallson (2004). A specific advantages of this latter scale is that it is very short (only 4 items), and that it can be used for free by non-profit researchers (unlike various other resilience scales).
The possible score range on the BRCS is from 4 (low resilience) to 20 (high resilience). According to the authors of the BRCS, scores can be interpreted as follows:
| BRCS score | Interpretation |
|---|---|
4-13 |
Low resilient copers |
14-16 |
Medium resilient copers |
17-20 |
High resilient copers |
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Legal stuff
The BRCS is in the public domain and can be used for research and education as long as it is properly cited and as long as the authors are acknowledged (Sinclair & Wallston, 2004).
| Various other resilience scales can be used only if you pay for them. It seems that medical professionals often want to charge for scales they develop. Be careful with other resilience scales than the BRCS. |
Technically
This is a very simple scale item in which the scores of the 4 Likert items are summed.
The survey code for PsyToolkit
scale: true
- Does <b>not</b> describe me at all
- Does not describe me
- Neutral
- Describes me
- Describes me <b>very well</b>
l: brcs
t: scale true
q: INSTRUCTIONS:<br>
Consider how well the following statements describe your behavior and actions.
- I look for creative ways to alter difficult situations.
- Regardless of what happens to me, I believe I can control my reaction to it.
- I believe that I can grow in positive ways by dealing with difficult situations.
- I actively look for ways to replace the losses I encounter in life.
l: score
t: set
- sum $brcs
l: feedback
t: info
q: Your score (on a range from 4-20) is {$score} points.<br>
In the combined sample, the mean BRCS score was 14.81 points.<br>
<ul>
<li>Low resilient copers: 4-13 points
<li>Medium resilient copers: 14-16 points
<li>High resilient copers: 17-20 points
</ul>
References
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Sinclair, V. G., & Wallston, K.A. (2004). The development and psychometric evaluation of the Brief Resilient Coping Scale. Assessment, 11 (1), 94-101.
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Smith, B.W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Chistopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 15, 194-200.
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Windle, G., Bennett, K.M., & Noyes, J. (2011). A methodological review of resilience measurement scales. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 9:8. Get this open access article.