Hi Gudrun,

I wonder if you have looked at adult resilience assessments as a backdrop to your question. Today, there are a handful of assessments that have been developed to measure adult resilience or aspects of adult resilience. I have included below five adult assessments that have a significant presents in the literature. These instruments were created according to applicable research findings, the designers’ own research purposes and conceptual framework and include the:

a. Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) is a 37-item instrument developed by Hjemdal, Friborg, Martinussen, and Rosenvinge (2001) of Norway. It looks at perception of personal competence, personal structure, social competence, family cohesion, and social resources.

b. The Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) comprises of 25 items developed by Kathryn Connor and Jonathan Davidson (2003). As far as I know, this model recognizes ‘benevolent intervention’ or faith as a component of resilience. It was designed to help assess the modifiability of resilience in response to pharmacological treatment in a clinical population.

c. The Resilience Scale (RS) is a 25-item assessment looking at perseverance, equanimity meaningfulness, self-reliance, and existential aloneness (Wagnild and Young, 1993; Wagnild, 2009).

There are two adult resilience scales that I am using in a study because they seem to me appropriate to my research purposes and the likely readers of my research. These scales are the:

d. Resilience Factor Inventory (or RFI)

e. Personnel Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ)

The first three scales (RSA, CD-RISK, RS) were designed more for clinical and diagnostic purposes. The RFI and the PRQ, have a broader appeal to those involved in member care, human resources, leadership development, organizational change, and coaching because they were designed for that context. The RFI and PRQ are available in multiple languages and administered online which makes them particularly useful for international humanitarian organizations.

The Resilience Factor Inventory (or RFI) is a 60 item inventory that measures an individual’s current level of resilience with normative data from more than 15,000 people. It is based on the resilience framework developed by cognitive psychologists Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte (2002). This model is built on the foundation that our responses (fear, disappointment, stress, anger, etc.) to difficult events are not caused by the events themselves but by how we interpret those events. This model presents resilience as consisting of seven basic factors:

1. Emotional regulation - the belief in our ability manage our internal world (emotions and thought life) in order to stay effective under pressure.

2. Impulse control – the belief in our ability to control one’s behaviour in the face of adversity and remain goal-focused.

3. Casual analysis – the belief in our ability to accurately identify the causes of one’s adversities and generate effective solution

4. Self-efficacy – the belief that we are effective in the world.

5. Realistic optimism – the belief in our ability to stay positive about the future yet to be realistic in our planning for it.

6. Empathy – the belief in our ability to read the verbal and non-verbal cues of others and thus build better relationships.

7. Reaching out – the belief in our ability to be proactive in embracing new opportunities.

The RFI also has some conceptual links to Emotional Intelligence Theory (Boyatzis, Goleman and McKee, 2002). In addition, the RFI-O aggregates individual RFI scores across a given group as a way of assessing the resiliency of a team or department. The RFI-360 is a 360 profiler based on the RFI but incorporates feedback from peer, subordinates and bosses into the instrument. Because of this, the RFI-360 is distinct from all other resiliency instruments as other instruments are self surveys only and thus rely exclusively on self perseption. Adaptive Learning Systems, Inc administers the RFI. See www.adaptivelearning.com.

The Personnel Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ) The Personal Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ) is a 75-item instrument that helps individuals gain insight into their resilience strengths and weaknesses, based on comparisons to a database of over 70,000 individuals. The PRQ is based on the resilience framework developed by ODR (now Conner Partners). It measures seven general characteristics related to resilience. In the PRQ a resilient person is defined as being:

1. Positive (toward world) – a belief that most people and most situations have positive and negative aspects to them.

2. Positive (toward self) – a belief in oneself as valuable and capable to influence your environment.

3. Focused – a strong sense of goals and priorities

4. Flexible (thoughts) – able to look at situations from multiple points of view and live with ambiguity and paradoxes.

5. Flexible (social) – the ability to draw on the resources of others and have strong social bonds with others.

6. Organized – able to find order in chaos and structure in ambiguity and move beyond thoughts to action.

7. Proactive – able to act decisively in the midst of uncertainty with appropriate risk taking.

In any case, I hope my answer above can help inform your question "what does resilience include for you?"

In my study I am currently thinking about how the concept of resilience and perseverance are related as explanations of how people stay on-task in spite of difficult circumstances, obstacles, setbacks, etc. Any thoughts? Cheers.

This is the way I understand resilience:it is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stresses. It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. Under certain extreme conditions it literally means "survival".

People are normally resilient but it varies from person to person. Personally, I find the following factors related to resilience:

1- Patience, this is a very important factor because it helps to make sound, rational and effective decisions under adverse conditions. It helps to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out effectively.

2-Confidence in your self, your strenghts and abilities help to have a positive view of yourself, something you certainly need in these adverse situations.

3-Communication skills and problem solving skills

4-The capacity to overcome emotions, strong feelings and impulses. Rational decisions must overcome emotions.

5-Family relationships create an atmosphere of love, trust, support, encouragement and reassurance that help bolster a person’s resilience.

6-Religious believe and trust in God. As a religious man this, for me, is the most important factor directly associated with resilience. For no matter how weak I am or how emotional I become, or how less secure and less confident I get, faith is a power house for me. I t has served me well under all conditions and helped me not only to survive these adverse situations, but more importantly learn from these terrible situations and turn them into a source of strength and more confidence not only in myself but more importantly in my faith and in God.

One thing I find exceptional about religion,faith and trust in God is that they always work under all circumstances and conditions, for when you believe in God, your believe is always with you wherever you are. Faith, religion and trust in God is your front-line if you like, it is your biggest shock absorber!

@Issam: I 100 per cent agree with you, especially with your 5th point. If all other resilience strategies are discounted with this one not only one can survive at the edge but quickly bounce back to the original strength and vigour.

My PhD into how people with chronic pain who "get on with it" suggests that it's not so much the specific set of coping strategies as it is how flexible the person is in applying them, and whether the person has a clear focus or goal or "something important" they want to get on and do despite adversity. In the absence of both of these, it's difficult for people to be resilient. Intertwined with this is the person's readiness to accept what has happened/is happening, their self efficacy, and the presence of at least one individual who shows caring.

@Bronnie

You are absolutely right, for what is the purpose of medicine if you refuse to take it! And this is where family, friends or a caring individual comes in. Similarly, coping strategies are only as good as how flexible a person is in applying them.

In my religion, Islam, we are encouraged to do good deeds even when we are dying. Our Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) told us to even if you could just plant a seed we should do it. So there are always useful things to do in life even at the very last moment, this in itself breaths hope, confidence and self satisfaction.

When you have chronic pain or terminal illness, faith is of great help. You accept what happened to you because you know your time has come and even God's messengers and prophets died before you and that life on Earth is not eternal. You may not be able to plant a seed but you can at least praise God. That is a more powerful medicine than any a doctor can prescribe and it doesn't cost anything!

Whatever situation you are in, faith, religion and trust in God, will always play an important role in your life right to the very end.

Hi Gudrun,

I wonder if you have looked at adult resilience assessments as a backdrop to your question. Today, there are a handful of assessments that have been developed to measure adult resilience or aspects of adult resilience. I have included below five adult assessments that have a significant presents in the literature. These instruments were created according to applicable research findings, the designers’ own research purposes and conceptual framework and include the:

a. Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) is a 37-item instrument developed by Hjemdal, Friborg, Martinussen, and Rosenvinge (2001) of Norway. It looks at perception of personal competence, personal structure, social competence, family cohesion, and social resources.

b. The Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) comprises of 25 items developed by Kathryn Connor and Jonathan Davidson (2003). As far as I know, this model recognizes ‘benevolent intervention’ or faith as a component of resilience. It was designed to help assess the modifiability of resilience in response to pharmacological treatment in a clinical population.

c. The Resilience Scale (RS) is a 25-item assessment looking at perseverance, equanimity meaningfulness, self-reliance, and existential aloneness (Wagnild and Young, 1993; Wagnild, 2009).

There are two adult resilience scales that I am using in a study because they seem to me appropriate to my research purposes and the likely readers of my research. These scales are the:

d. Resilience Factor Inventory (or RFI)

e. Personnel Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ)

The first three scales (RSA, CD-RISK, RS) were designed more for clinical and diagnostic purposes. The RFI and the PRQ, have a broader appeal to those involved in member care, human resources, leadership development, organizational change, and coaching because they were designed for that context. The RFI and PRQ are available in multiple languages and administered online which makes them particularly useful for international humanitarian organizations.

The Resilience Factor Inventory (or RFI) is a 60 item inventory that measures an individual’s current level of resilience with normative data from more than 15,000 people. It is based on the resilience framework developed by cognitive psychologists Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte (2002). This model is built on the foundation that our responses (fear, disappointment, stress, anger, etc.) to difficult events are not caused by the events themselves but by how we interpret those events. This model presents resilience as consisting of seven basic factors:

1. Emotional regulation - the belief in our ability manage our internal world (emotions and thought life) in order to stay effective under pressure.

2. Impulse control – the belief in our ability to control one’s behaviour in the face of adversity and remain goal-focused.

3. Casual analysis – the belief in our ability to accurately identify the causes of one’s adversities and generate effective solution

4. Self-efficacy – the belief that we are effective in the world.

5. Realistic optimism – the belief in our ability to stay positive about the future yet to be realistic in our planning for it.

6. Empathy – the belief in our ability to read the verbal and non-verbal cues of others and thus build better relationships.

7. Reaching out – the belief in our ability to be proactive in embracing new opportunities.

The RFI also has some conceptual links to Emotional Intelligence Theory (Boyatzis, Goleman and McKee, 2002). In addition, the RFI-O aggregates individual RFI scores across a given group as a way of assessing the resiliency of a team or department. The RFI-360 is a 360 profiler based on the RFI but incorporates feedback from peer, subordinates and bosses into the instrument. Because of this, the RFI-360 is distinct from all other resiliency instruments as other instruments are self surveys only and thus rely exclusively on self perseption. Adaptive Learning Systems, Inc administers the RFI. See www.adaptivelearning.com.

The Personnel Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ) The Personal Resilience Questionnaire (or PRQ) is a 75-item instrument that helps individuals gain insight into their resilience strengths and weaknesses, based on comparisons to a database of over 70,000 individuals. The PRQ is based on the resilience framework developed by ODR (now Conner Partners). It measures seven general characteristics related to resilience. In the PRQ a resilient person is defined as being:

1. Positive (toward world) – a belief that most people and most situations have positive and negative aspects to them.

2. Positive (toward self) – a belief in oneself as valuable and capable to influence your environment.

3. Focused – a strong sense of goals and priorities

4. Flexible (thoughts) – able to look at situations from multiple points of view and live with ambiguity and paradoxes.

5. Flexible (social) – the ability to draw on the resources of others and have strong social bonds with others.

6. Organized – able to find order in chaos and structure in ambiguity and move beyond thoughts to action.

7. Proactive – able to act decisively in the midst of uncertainty with appropriate risk taking.

In any case, I hope my answer above can help inform your question "what does resilience include for you?"

In my study I am currently thinking about how the concept of resilience and perseverance are related as explanations of how people stay on-task in spite of difficult circumstances, obstacles, setbacks, etc. Any thoughts? Cheers.

I agree with your thoughts on resilience. I think we often conceptualise resilience in terms of emotional wellbeing, but it is often demonstrated in life by maintaining focus, r persevering despite adversity. It also seems to consist of the ability to problem solve and apply solutions flexibly to achieve the end result.

Interestingly, the participants in my study didn't all have strong social or family support, and some had depressive disorders. They certainly all had strong valued goals or activities, or a sense of purpose for remaining active despite severe pain. But in these participants it had taken some time for them to get to the point of "getting on with it" so I think it is important to consider the process of coping with adversity as just that, a process, rather than a stable set of traits or constant state of being.

Hi Gudrun,

There is a great theoretical article by Suniya Luthar and Dante Cicchetti that discusses the construct of resilience. It is titled "The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guidelines for Future Work" and was published in 2000 in Child Dev. 71(3): 543–562. You may access it here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1885202/. Hope this helps!

Hi Gudrun,

I think to understand resilience fully, it is very important to understand the role that commitment plays in helping people to sustain their behaviour towards future goals. That's why I agree with Bronnie that resilience is partially about maintaining some sort of focus - not only on one's goals, but also choosing identity-relevant future goals. I think if one's commitments involve identity-commitments, then it becomes easier to regulate one's behaviour (coping in other words), to maintain a particular focus.

Thank you for all the very good contributions. Slowly but safely I am returning the the subjects of stress and resilience. I am starting to pick up the subject again and when I am ready I will come back to you. In autumn I held a course at a private university which gave me some new ideas concerning a stress model. I am not ready with my model yet and it might not be perfect and therefore you might be able to discuss it when I have have more details to present.

Concerning resilience assessments and questionnaires I am waiting for an order of a client. Then I will have a closer look at those, because we are supposed to acquire the need of stress management actions to prevent burnout. While that is not coming in, I will be doing some reading.

I am reading a lot about resilience and getting new inspirations. The project I was waiting for last year never took place. Did anybody hear about the "casita" by Stefan Vanistendael? He published the idea in "Bureau international chatholique de l'enfance" and the title of the article was "La resilence ou le réalisme de l'espérance".