Psychometric properties and factor structure of the BRCS in an elderly Spanish sample

Abstract

Successful resilience is a variable often related to an optimal aging process. However, literature is rather limited when dealing with assessment instruments for the elderly in the Spanish language. The objective of this work is to validate the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (Sinclair & Wallston, 2004), a four item likert scale, in the Spanish elderly. For this propose, the scale was administrated to a sample of 991 elderly Spanish participants, and the data set analysed in terms of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency and criterion validity. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties. Furthermore, the homogeneity indices were higher than the recently literature, reinforcing the dimensional structure of the scale. These results have shown higher reliability from previous Spanish versions. Therefore, the Brief Resilient Coping Scale is a valuable assessment instrument that could be very useful in the assessing of resilience in the Spanish-speaking elderly.