A critical evaluation of adolescent resilience self-report scales: A scoping review

Valid quantitative measures of adolescent resilience are important for the development of knowledge and have implications for practice with adolescents. This scoping review followed Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five step process and aimed to (1) identify the most used self-report scales that measure resilience of adolescents in studies published between 2000 and 2021, (2) describe the scales’ psychometric properties, (3) describe the scales’ conceptual and theoretical formulations, and (4) assess the scales’ relative strengths, weaknesses, and adequacy. A review of 118 papers revealed six commonly used scales. A construct validation approach adapted from Skinner (1981) and expanding on Pangallo et al., (2015), with evidence assessed in four stages (theoretical formulation, reliability, validity, and application) was utilised to critically evaluate the six scales. The results showed that the most adequate scale for measuring resilience in adolescent populations was the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, scoring 83% of points. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (also scoring 83%) and The Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (78%) were also found to be adequate. This review provides clinicians and researchers with a critical overview of common scales measuring resilience in adolescents, including their underlying theoretical basis. This is vital to ensure the measure chosen is valid and matches the theoretical aims of the research/ application. Our review also suggests that too often, researchers fail to look beyond the original validation study when selecting resilience scales, and often fail to analyse and report current psychometric data from the chosen scale.