Further evidence for the structure of the Resilience Scale in portuguese language countries: An invariance study with brazilian and portuguese adolescents

Abstract

Especially since the last decades of the 20th century, research about resilience provided some insights into how people deal and overcome adversity in a positive way. Given the recent research history on this topic, discussion about theories and measures is still ongoing. In this study we aim to explore the structural invariance of the Wagnild and Young’s Resilience Scale (RS), one of the most widely used measures of resilience, across Portuguese and Brazilian adolescents. A sample of 969 adolescents with ages ranging between 13 and 18 years old completed the RS. A five- and a two-factor structure for the full RS version with 25 items and a one-factor structure for a RS short version, composed of 14 items, were tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). After determining the best fitting structure, a multi-group CFA was performed to test the invariance of the instrument across the Portuguese and Brazilian samples.  The five- and two-factor structures for the full version revealed a poor fit. The one-factor structure revealed a good fit in both samples. Moreover, evidence for the partial measurement invariance of the short version across both samples was found. Our results indicate that the RS short version can be used for cross-cultural studies of resilience in both countries and that the five- and two-factor structures might be inadequate for comparison purposes.