Psychometric properties of the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) and its relationship with life-stress, anxiety and depression in a Hispanic Latin-American community sample

Resilience is a multi-dimensional construct associated with health and well-being. At present, we do not yet have a valid, scientific instrument that is designed to evaluate adult resilience in Spanish-speaking countries and that accounts for family, social and individual components. This study aimed at investigating the construct and cross-cultural validity of the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) by combining Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and Hierarchical Regression models in a Hispanic Latin-American group. A community sample of 805 adults answered the RSA, Spanish Language Stressful Life-Events checklist (SL-SLE), and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25). First-order CFA verified the six factors structure for the RSA (RMSEA = .037, SRMR = .047, CFI = .91, TLI = .90). Five RSA scales and total score have good internal consistency (scales α > .70; total score α = .90). Two second-order CFA verified the intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of the protector factors of resilience, as well as their commonality and uniqueness with affective symptoms (anxiety and depression). An exploratory MDS reproduced the relations of RSA items and factors at first and second-order levels against random simulated data, thereby providing initial evidence of its cross-cultural validity in a Spanish-speaking group. The Four-steps hierarchical model showed that the RSA scales are the strongest predictors of anxiety and depression–greater than gender, age, education and stressful life-events. Three RSA scales are significant unique predictors of affective symptoms. In addition, similar to findings in diverse cultural settings, resilience is positively associated with age but not with education. Women report higher scores of Social Resources and Social Competence and lower scores of Perception of the Self. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the construct and criterion-related validity of the RSA in broad, diverse and Spanish speaking sample.