Measuring resilience in children: a review of recent literature and recommendations for future research

Abstract

Purpose of review Understanding variability in developmental outcomes following exposure to early life adversity (ELA) has been an area of increasing interest in psychiatry, as resilient outcomes are just as prevalent as negative ones. However, resilient individuals are understudied in most cohorts and even when studied, resilience is typically defined as an absence of psychopathology. This review examines current approaches to resilience and proposes more comprehensive and objective ways of defining resilience. Recent findings Of the 36 studies reviewed, the most commonly used measure was the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (n = 6), followed by the Child Behavior Checklist (n = 5), the Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescents (n = 5), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (n = 4), and the Child and Youth Resilience Scale (n = 3). Summary This review reveals that studies tend to rely on self-report methods to capture resilience which poses some challenges. We propose a complementary measure of child resilience that relies on more proactive behavioral and observational indicators; some of our preliminary findings are presented. Additionally, concerns about the way ELA is characterized as well as the influence of genetics on resilient outcomes prompts further considerations about how to proceed with resiliency research.

Resilience and mental health in children and adolescents: an update of the recent literature and future directions

“…Early research focused on separate aspects of resilience, such as family support; however, an overarching concept was lacking. Current resilience measures reflect an aggregate of those aspects [ 9 ▪▪ ]; however, measures of resilience in children and adolescents are scarce [ 6 ▪ , 7 ]. Importantly, resilience is not simply the absence of psychopathology but a construct that reflects dynamic adaptation to adversity that can change over time [ 10 ].…”

“…We have conducted a systematic literature search (search period: January 2020–May 2021; for search strategy see Supplementary Material). Studies were included if they reported on resilience (measured with a resilience scale) [ 6 ▪ , 7 ]; mental health in children aged 0–18 years, clinical or epidemiological correlates of resilience and N at least 100.…”

The role of grit and resilience in children with reading disorder: a longitudinal cohort study

“…We tested for convergent validity using the total difficulties score of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which has been used to measure resilience in a number of cohort studies (King et al, 2021;Young et al, 2019) and to test for convergent validity in another study evaluating a novel resilience scale (Suzuki et al, 2015). Although SDQ itself does not operationally define resilience, the studies that used it to measure resilience defined the construct as follows: "positive adaptation or better-than-expected outcomes in the context of… adversity" (King et al, 2021), " [showing] positive outcomes despite the presence of adversity" (Young et al, 2019) and "the process of positive adaptation to…difficulties" (Suzuki et al, 2015), all of which were very similar to our own definition of resilience in this study: "the ability to bounce back after adversity or failure." The Grit & Resilience Scale achieved convergent validity with SDQ, with parent-reported measures having a correlation coefficient (r) of − 0.74 (p < 0.001) and teacher-reported measures having an r of − 0.73 (p < 0.001).…”

Development and validation of a multidimensional, culturally and socially inclusive Child Resilience Questionnaire (parent/caregiver report) to measure factors that support resilience: a community-based participatory research and psychometric testing study in Australia

“…Strengths of our study include use of participatory methods and co-esign processes to ensure content validity and cultural acceptability and gold-standard psychometric approaches, including confirmatory factor analysis to establish construct validity and testing of criterion validity against the SDQ. 23 In addition, we recruited culturally diverse participants and employed a range of approaches to community consultation and codesign to ensure cultural validity of the CRQ-P/C. While our study has many strengths compared with previous research, there are important limitations to note.…”

“… 22 A more recent review identified few studies employing a psychometrically validated measure of resilience. 23 Of those using validated measures, the most commonly used were the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (n=6) and the Child Behaviour Checklist (n=5), neither of which was designed to assess resilience. A systematic review of resilience factors associated with positive outcomes for adolescents in out-of-home care identified a greater number of resilience measures.…”