Abstract
Resilience is the process and outcome of healthy adaptation despite significant adversity. Proliferation of research on the resilience construct has led to scientific concerns about the operationalization and measurement of resilience for assessment science and practice. Various studies that have investigated the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) have yielded inconsistent findings, which could partly be due to variations in the methodological approaches. This study investigated the factor structure and construct validity of the READ in four European regions participating in the Universal Preventive Resilience Intervention Globally Implemented in Schools to Improve and Promote Mental Health for Teenagers (UPRIGHT) project. Participants included adolescents aged 10–15 years from Spain (n = 391, females = 51%), Iceland (n = 379, females = 55%), Italy (n = 460, females = 55%), and Poland (n = 316, females = 51%). The five-factor model of the READ was similar across gender and participating regions. Construct validity of the READ was supported. After establishing construct separability, incremental validity was supported (except for the social competence subscale). The READ is a valid and reliable measure of protective factors involved in resilience and demonstrates promise for cross-cultural applicability. Recommendations for measuring resilience and validating the READ in future investigations are provided.
Highlights
Systematic reviews of the global burden of mental health problems in young people suggest that anxiety and depression continue to increase even in the context of underreporting and detection (Gore et al, 2011; Bor et al, 2014)
The goal of the current study was to investigate the operationalization of resilience by the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) across participating regions in the UPRIGHT project
The goal of this study was to investigate the operationalization of resilience by the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) in samples across the Basque Country (Spain), Reykjavík (Iceland), Trentino (Italy), and Lower Silesia (Poland) after the translation of the instrument as part of the UPRIGHT project (Las Hayas et al, 2019)
Summary
Systematic reviews of the global burden of mental health problems in young people suggest that anxiety and depression continue to increase even in the context of underreporting and detection (Gore et al, 2011; Bor et al, 2014). The World Health Organization (WHO) European Region report on adolescent mental health indicated that anxiety and depression are among the top five causes of overall disease burden (World Health Organization, 2018). Schools are key settings for intervention programs to promote positive mental health (Ford and Finning, 2020). In a systematic review of resilience-enhancing and universally delivered school-based mental health promotion programs, the authors concluded that programs that focused on resilience and coping skills positively impacted students and helped them to manage daily stressors (Fenwick-Smith et al, 2018). Delivered programs included key components that focused on teacher involvement, student engagement, participatory methods to engage students, and the use of multiple methods for program evaluation (Fenwick-Smith et al, 2018)
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