Resilience Scale: What It Measures And How It Can Help
Would you like to know how well you're equipped to bounce back after trauma and tragedy? The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale CD RISC 10 can help you find out. In short, the Resilience Scale CD RISC is a point scale used to measure an individual’s resilience in a stress situation that could potentially cause depression and anxiety.
Trauma and tragedy are a reality of life for many different individuals, but that doesn’t make these experiences any easier to work through. Knowing how resilient you are by measuring resilience through this scale with good psychometric properties and high internal consistency can help you face these situations with a greater understanding of your personal characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses in handling internal and external stressors.
What is resilience?
Resilience refers to a person’s ability to thrive in the face of adversity and bounce back from it. This adversity could be a traumatic event or situation; these happen to many people in the general population at one time or another. If you're resilient, you're better able to move through stressful events relatively quickly and easily, comparatively. Being resilient doesn’t mean that tragedy doesn’t affect you or still pose hurt and unpleasant feelings; it just means that you have the internal consistency and capacity to move forward even amid hardship.
Resilience is a trait you're born with and develop during your childhood. Since you’ll continue to face new challenges and experiences as you move through life, learning how to build resilience is a continual process. Whether you’re a resilient person already or have just learned how to manage the process better, you can still commit to growing more in this area, with the help of social support and other resources.
Research focusing on the resilience scale, including the Connor Davidson theories and others, indicate that people, including young adults, are capable of building resilience.
What is the Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale?
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale is a test that measures resilience, with psychometric properties and a unidimensional scale. It starts with a pencil-and-paper evaluation that is then scored and interpreted by someone who is authorized to do so. The main purpose of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale is to distinguish between people with greater resilience and those with less, through assessing higher scores and total score.
What does the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale measure?
The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) measures five basic components of resilience. These are:
- Your abilities, standards, and characteristics.
- Trusting your intuition, enduring hard feelings, and recovering from stress.
- Accepting change positively and having safe relationships.
- The amount of control you feel you have over your circumstances.
- How spirituality influences you.
What's the point of measuring my resilience?
The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale can provide several benefits, including:
Gaining Awareness
Knowing how resilient you are can help you understand yourself on a deeper level. For instance, if you find that you're not very resilient, you can consider how to become more confident and high resilience. If you find that you are already very resilient, that knowledge can help you feel more confident about trying new ventures with ease.
Choosing The Right Treatment For You
If you're experiencing anxiety, PTSD, or depression, getting treatment can be a powerful first step toward a healthier lifestyle. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale can be used to assess which treatments may work best for you. How you score on the original scale can give your mental health professional more insight into which medications or therapies might be most effective for treating whatever you’re facing.
Recovering From PTSD
People who have PTSD, or trauma exposure, typically (but not always) score low on the CD-RISC. By taking the test and having a doctor or therapist score and interpret it, you can gain valuable knowledge about the severity of your condition. Then, after you're in treatment for a while, your therapist might give you the test again to help you see how much progress you're making toward overcoming your PTSD.
Improving Resilience
The scale can also help your therapist determine what steps you need to take to improve your resilience. If you feel vulnerable to most bumps in the road of life, you might want to consider working on your resilience to become more stable and trusting of yourself and your abilities. The CD-RISC can point your therapist to the different aspects of resilience that you score low in, including the factor structure of resilience, such as acceptance of change.
Who are Connor and Davidson?
Kathryn M. Connor is a psychiatrist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Connor has researched and written extensively on stress, anxiety, social anxiety, medications, and resilience.
Jonathan R.T. Davidson is now a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. His long list of publication credits includes reports and interpretations of studies on a wide range of psychiatric topics, including many on PTSD. Davidson has also written on homeopathic and complementary medicine.
How Connor and Davidson developed their new resilience scale
Connor and Davidson began developing their scale after working with PTSD patients in clinical practice. They found that the resilience scales available at the time didn't help them much in treating their patients. They wanted to develop a test that could be used in a wide variety of circumstances and with many different people. They also wanted a scale they could use to assist people with PTSD and other mental health problems.
Studying several distinct groups, they modified the original version of the test extensively before creating a version to be used in the field. The groups listed below were among those analyzed, and their mean scores out of the maximum score of 100 were as follows:
The general community, with a mean score of 80.7
Primary care patients, with a mean score of 71.8
General psychiatric outpatients, with a mean score of 68.0
Generalized anxiety clinical trial group, with a mean score of 62.4
Two PTSD clinical trial groups, with mean scores of 47.8 and 52.8
Who is the test for?
The CD-RISC was designed for adults. It's been found reliable when used for adolescents and children as young as ten years old. The test is written at a 5th-grade reading level, so most children 12 and up can take it. However, if you do need help, an assistant can read the questions for you.
Youth with serious mental challenges may work to attain higher resilience scores and increase their self-awareness of how they handle stress. This may lead to the development of a new strategy to manage depression and anxiety. The study of resilience indicates it is a key factor in mental wellbeing.
How many items are on the test?
There are three versions of the test, all based on the original test. The original complete test has 25 items. You need to complete at least 19 of these for the test to be valid.
If you don't have much time to take the test, you can take the brief resilience scale, which is the 10-question version, or the two-question version. On the 10-question test, you need to complete at least seven items. For both the 25-item and 10-item versions, the test results will be the most accurate if you answer all the questions. The two-item test is called the CD-RISC2. Each of the shorter tests uses 10 or two, respectively, of the exact questions on the 25-item test.
Often, one of these shorter versions is used for screening, and the complete version is used during treatment. However, Connor and Davidson have suggested that the much shorter two-item version is valid and sufficient to assess resilience, demonstrating convergent validity and divergent validity.
How much time does it take?
Most people can take the 25-item version within 10 minutes. The 10-item and two-item versions only take between one and five minutes to take.
Who gives and scores the test?
Anyone who gives the test must request it from Connor and Davidson. They must state their qualifications and purposes for using the scale. Most people who give this test are doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists. The person who gives the test is the one who scores it.
Where can I take the test?
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale is mainly used in research projects and in clinical practice. Unless you are a participant in a clinical trial, you'll most likely receive it from a doctor, psychiatrist, or therapist, who can analyze the positive affect and negative affect in your responses.
You can take the test anywhere that is appropriate and agreed upon by you and whoever is giving you the test. If you’re interested in taking it, speak with your doctor or therapist and decide when and where to do it.
Can I take the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale test on my own?
You shouldn’t attempt to take the test on your own. There's no evidence or expectation that the test would be effective without the supervision of someone who has been given official approval to give it. Any test versions online are either incomplete or incorrect.
What does a counselor use during a resilience test?
A counselor uses the authentic version of the CD-RISC scale. There are only three authorized versions of the CD-RISC, which have gone through factor analysis and structural equation modeling to ensure their accuracy. They all come directly from Connor and Davidson. The 25-question contains all the questions, and the 10-question and two-question tests contain items selected from the original 25-question test.
Is there another version of the new resilience scale from Connor and Davidson available?
No other version has been tested and evaluated as the Connor Davidson test has been. None of the others have been proven both accurate and helpful. The questions on the test are formulated in a specific way based on extensive knowledge, research, and consideration. The wording and order of the questions have been carefully refined and studied to get the most accurate results.
Is it possible for me to take the test online if I have stress and anxiety due to a past trauma?
It might be interesting to take the test online or on your own, but it won't tell you anything that will help you unless it's given properly and interpreted by someone who is trained to do so. Qualified professionals understand how the test should be used and applied to individual clients. It's vital to request the test from someone who can give it, including doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists.
Online therapy with BetterHelp
Developing resiliency can be a continual process. If you’re wanting to improve your ability to handle the stressors and hardships of life, speaking to a licensed BetterHelp therapist may be beneficial.
Speaking about traumatic experiences can be difficult, even when you have people in your life that you trust. Online therapy may give you the safety you need to be able to open up completely about how you’re feeling. A therapist can guide you through discussions in a safe, supportive environment that fosters and encourages growth.
The efficacy of online therapy in managing stress and anxiety caused by a traumatic event
Online therapy can be just as effective as traditional face-to-face therapy for treating a variety of mental health disorders. One study looked at the efficacy of online therapy in treating PTSD. Researchers found that an internet-delivered intervention “proved to be a viable treatment alternative for PTSD with large effect sizes and sustained treatment effects.” In addition, results showed that participants were able to establish a “stable and positive” online relationship with their therapists.
Takeaway
While some people seem to naturally bounce back from hardships from a young age, others must develop their resiliency over time. The Connor Davidson Resilience Scale, as a new resilience scale, can give you some insight into how well you handle difficult situations and move forward. For those who would like to improve their resiliency, online therapy can be a helpful option. Though tragedy and trauma are natural aspects of life, it's rarely true that they have to stand in your way and hold you back forever.
What is the cut-off score for the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale?
The authors of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) report a mean score of 80.4 for the 25-item assessment and a mean score of 32.1 for the ten-item assessment. The 25-item assessment can produce scores between 0 and 100, and the 10-item assessment can produce scores between 0 and 50. Because the CD-RISC is interpreted by a professional alongside other assessment data, there is not a firm cut-off score that indicates whether a person is above or below a certain resilience threshold. As scores decrease, resilience tends to drop. A score below 55 would place an assessment taker in the bottom 25% of the population, while the highest 25% of the population would have a score over 89.
How is the resilience score calculated?
According to a deprecated copy of the CD-RISC manual made available by the assessment’s authors, the resilience score is calculated by summing together the scores for all items. For the 25-item assessment, each item can be scored from 0 to 4, giving the assessment a maximum range of 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating lower resilience. In the 10-item version, the assessment has a maximum range of 0 to 40. Like the 25-item version, higher scores represent higher levels of resilience.
Factor analysis studies revealed that overall resilience scores were influenced by the location where data was obtained and the characteristics of the tested population. Scores can vary naturally by country, and evidence suggests that those who have difficulty coping with stress, such as those with psychiatric disorders and young adults, are more likely to have lower resilience scores.
What is a good resilience score?
The CD-RISC is a clinical assessment designed to be interpreted by professionals as part of a more extensive evaluation process. Because of this, it can be difficult to say what constitutes a “good” resilience score. The authors of the assessment report that the average score for the 25-item version is 80.4. The assessment can return a score from 0 to 100, and the higher a person scores, the more resilient they are likely to be.
What is the Resilience Scale for Adults?
The Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) measures a person’s ability to healthily adjust to stressors in the face of adversity. It is significantly older than the relatively new resilience scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Over the last two decades, the need for new resilience scales has led to the development of other similar measures, such as the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). The RSA, CD-RISC, and BRS all serve unique functions. For example, the CD-RISC was originally designed to serve as a clinical measurement of post-traumatic stress disorder and examine five dimensions related to resilience. The BRS and RSA treat resilience as a unidimensional concept and were developed to assess the most basic interpretation of the word “resilience.”
The development of a new measure of resilience, regardless of the underlying theory, requires empirical investigation to be considered useful. Researchers commonly examine an assessment's validity, or how accurately it measures what it was designed to measure, and the assessment’s reliability, or how likely it was to return similar results under test-retest conditions. In norming studies, the RSA demonstrated good retest reliability and construct validity, and it is still sometimes used as part of a larger assessment battery.
What does a high resilience score mean?
On most measures of resilience, a higher score means that the person who completed the assessment is more resilient than those who scored below them. For example, a score of 94 on the CD-RISC indicates resilience that is far above average, while a score of 34 indicates resilience that is well below average. Generally speaking, the higher a person’s resilience score the greater their ability to use healthy coping mechanisms and prevent a negative affect during times of adversity.
How can I be a resilient person?
Most psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting and adjusting in a healthy way during periods of adversity. A resilient person still feels stress and may still experience the unpleasant feelings that come with times of high stress. It is generally how the person recovers from that stress and continues on with their life that defines how resilient they are.
Experts have a few common recommendations for building resilience, discussed below:
- Prioritize relationships. Resilient people tend to have broad support networks. Leaning on friends and loved ones is typically beneficial, especially during times of adversity.
- Practice self-care. Many experts agree that the foundation of good self-care includes eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, and getting regular exercise. During times of high stress, it can sometimes be challenging to stick to the basics of self-care, but ensuring that the most fundamental aspects of self-care are maintained will likely be helpful.
- Stay engaged with purpose. During times of adversity, it may be helpful to find opportunities for purpose and societal engagement. You could find ways to help others, engage in a journey of self-discovery, or consider new ways to move toward your goals.
- Take perspective. High stress can sometimes feel overwhelming, and it is often easier to catastrophize your situation or engage in other unhealthy thought processes. It is often helpful to make a deliberate effort to focus on the positive aspects of your situation, even if doing so is challenging.
- Seek professional help. A therapist or other mental health professional can likely offer you tools, strategies, and guidance to help you bolster resilience and make it through life’s current challenges.
How do you stay resilient in life?
One of the most effective ways to maintain resilience is cultivating forgiveness throughout your life. Feelings of blame are common during times of adversity and taking proactive steps to forgive, be it a person or the situation itself, can help take some of the weight off of your shoulders. Practicing forgiveness also goes hand-in-hand with practicing gratitude, another strategy that is likely to be helpful. In times of great stress, it is often easy to lose sight of the positive aspects of the situation, and it may be challenging to see positive changes as they occur. Consciously seeking positivity and choosing to be grateful can substantially reduce the impact of negative or adverse circumstances.
Is resilience a skill?
Resilience is commonly viewed as a personality trait, but many skills underlie resilience and can be built with practice. You may want to start by focusing on skills that help build self-esteem, which is closely associated with resilience. Common skills associated with self-esteem include learning how to recognize negative self-talk, practicing gratitude regularly, and ensuring you are meeting the minimum standards for self-care. As you become more secure in yourself, you can practice more advanced skills related to resilience, like problem-solving and managing challenging emotions.
What is a resilient attitude?
There isn’t a formal definition of a resilient attitude, and different people may have different thoughts about what it entails. To many, it likely means that a person can recover and persevere after experiencing significant adversity. It doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t get stressed or feel overwhelmed at times, but rather that they possess the skills and demeanor to keep pushing through negativity until reaching less adverse circumstances.
What is the symbol of resilience?
There isn’t a standardized symbol of resilience, but many people consider the helix or spiral to be symbols of resilience. Those shapes are found in nature and often represent cyclical patterns that, although they may be adverse at the moment, will eventually become positive.
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