A Validation Study of the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) Tilmann von Soest & Svein Mossige & Kari Stefansen & Odin Hjemdal Published online: 7 July 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract In this study, the validity of the recently developed 28-item Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) was examined. Survey data from a representative sample of 6,723 Norwegian senior high school students between 18 and 20 years of age were used for this purpose. Validity and reliability were investigated by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, correlations with other relevant variables, and internal consistency measures. The results supported the construct and convergent validity of the five factors of a modified 23-item version of the scale, which also yielded acceptable psychometric properties. The paper concludes that the modified READ is a valid measure assessing relevant resilience factors with relatively few items, thereby serving as a valuable tool in resilience and risk-factor research. Keywords Resilience . Scale . Vulnerability. Confirmatory factor analysis . Validity Resilience is commonly defined as a phenomenon or process reflecting relatively positive adaptation despite experiences of significant adversity or trauma (Masten 2001). Significant adversity covers adverse life situations, such as parental psychopathology or low socio-economic status, as well as specific negative life events like childhood abuse or loss of a significant person. Adversity has in many studies been defined by multiple negative experiences, operationalized through cumulative risk calculations (Wyman et al. 2000). Positive adaptation, on the other hand, has been defined as developing a substantially better level of functioning than would be expected given exposure to significant risk (Luthar 2006). This has often been operationalized in terms of health, social skills, and meeting age-appropriate developmental tasks (Luthar 1991, 2006). Resilience has received considerable attention in psy- chopathological research in recent years, as research in this field can provide important knowledge about how to support healthy development in difficult circumstances. However, despite of the increase in resilience research, there has been a lack of measurement instruments to assess resilience factors. Particularly for adolescents, no such scale was available until recently. The intent of this paper is therefore to validate the newly developed Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ). Resilience Factors in Research on Adolescents Resilience may be explained by three categories of factors, namely positive individual factors, family support, and a supportive environment outside the family. Positive indi- vidual factors include robust neurobiology, adaptive tem- perament, intelligence, and self-system variables such as beliefs about self-worth, control and future expectations (Olsson et al. 2003 Wyman et al. 2000). One instance of such a self-system variable is the construct of hardiness, which is characterized by interpreting potential stressful situations as meaningful and interesting, perceiving stres- sors as changeable and viewing change as offering opportunity rather than as posing threat (Funk 1992 T. von Soest (*) : S. Mossige : K. Stefansen Norwegian Social Research, PO Box 3223 Elisenberg, 0208 Oslo, Norway e-mail: tvs@nova.no O. Hjemdal Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2010) 32:215���225 DOI 10.1007/s10862-009-9149-x

Kobasa et al. 1982). It has been shown that hardy individuals demonstrate less negative reaction to both moderately stressful and highly traumatic experiences compared to persons who do not share this trait to the same degree (see Vogt et al. 2008). Thus, hardiness can be seen as an example of a positive individual factor enhancing resilience. Concerning functional family relationships, it has been shown that a variety of positive family characteristics appear to be positively related to resilience in adolescence (Olsson et al. 2003 Wyman et al. 2000). Such character- istics include a stable living situation, residing with both parents (DuMont et al. 2007), the availability of emotional support (Heller et al. 1999), and a low degree of parental discord (Collishaw et al. 2007). Moreover, positive parent- child attachment, parental warmth, care, and a coherent, non-blaming parenting style have also shown to be highly protective against a number of different risk factors (Luthar 2006 Olsson et al. 2003). A supportive environment outside the family includes characteristics of the neighbourhood, school and availabil- ity of social support and positive role models outside the family (Werner and Smith 1982). Such resources include positive teacher and peer influences, which have been shown to be positively related to adolescent resilience (Olsson et al. 2003). Similarly, growing up in a disadvan- taged neighbourhood has proven to be associated with an increased risk of child maltreatment and poorer adjustment (DuMont et al. 2007). There is general consensus among resilience researchers regarding these three overarching categories (Garmezy 1993 Olsson et al. 2003 Werner and Smith 1992), which may���in the absence of a unifying theory or definition��� serve as a guiding principle for developing operationaliza- tions of resilience. It is, therefore, important to develop valid and reliable measures of the intra- and interpersonal protective factors covering these three categories. Measurement of Resilience in Adults In recent years, several resilience scales for adults have been developed, such as the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISK Connor and Davidson 2003) and the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (Sinclair and Wallston 2004). However, these scales principally measure personal dispo- sitions, which is only one of the three overarching protective factors. The Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) was therefore developed as a more comprehensive measure to cover factors from all three categories. The Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ), as validated in this paper, was developed as an adaptation of the RSA for specific use with adolescents. The RSA was itself developed on the basis of a content analysis of resilience factors presented in international journals (Hjemdal et al. 2001). These factors were sorted into 13 groups covering the three overarching categories listed above. In all, 295 items across these 13 groups were generated for measuring adult resilience. Through careful, step-wise selection of the most relevant items, the total number of original items was reduced in several studies by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (Friborg et al. 2005 Friborg and Hjemdal 2004 Friborg et al. 2003 Hjemdal et al. 2006), a process resulting in the final 33-item version of the RSA. In the RSA, a semantically differential response format was used, where the end-points of the seven-point scales were anchored by pairs of statements, as in ���My plans for the future are������, with end-point statements ���[1] difficult to accomplish��� and ���[7] possible to accomplish���. The RSA has been shown to differentiate between out-patients and normal samples, as well as between highly adaptive and more vulnerable personality profiles (Friborg et al. 2003). Development of the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) When adapting the RSA to adolescence, the original response format proved to be too complicated when the items were tested on a group of adolescents in a pilot study. Items were then changed to a 5-point Likert response format (1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree) with exclusively positively phrased items, such that high scores indicate high resilience for all items. Moreover, the wording was simplified in order to better accommodate adolescents. For instance, ���If I encounter significant obstacles, I can succeed by working hard��� was changed to ���I will reach my goal if I work hard���. As the development of the READ was based on the RSA, which initially contained five factors, a confirmatory factor analysis with a five-factor solution was undertaken, resulting in a relatively good fit (Hjemdal et al. 2006). The factors were labelled 1) Personal Competence, 2) Social Competence, 3) Structured Style, 4) Family Cohesion, and 5) Social Resources. Cronbach���s alpha varied between .85 and .69. Moreover, two studies found expected correlations in negative constructs such as negative life events, bullying, depressive symptoms, and symptoms of social anxiety as well as in positive constructs such as membership in athletic clubs, team sports, and physical activity. (Hjemdal et al. 2007, 2006). Both these studies supported the validity of the scale, however there were several limitations to the READ validations in these papers. First, the samples of adolescents were drawn from only five junior high schools in one Norwegian county. The age-span of the participants was 216 J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2010) 32:215���225