Psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the resilience scale

The aim of this study was to investigate resilience in relation to age and gender, and to elucidate the underlying structure of the Swedish version of the Resilience Scale (RS). The RS, originally created by Wagnild and Young is a 25 items scale of Lickert type with possible scores ranges from 25 to 175, the higher the score, the stronger resilience. A standardized procedure was used for translation. The analysis was based on 1719 participants, 1248 women and 471 men, from eight different samples, aged from 19 to 103 years. We found that the participants estimated their resilience as relatively high. There was a significant relationship between age and resilience, for every year RS score increased with 0.134 units. There was no relation between gender and resilience. From a factor analyses five factors emerged, equanimity, meaningfulness, perseverance, existential aloneness and self-reliance reflecting the five dimensions described by Wagnild and Young. We concluded that the resilience is related to age, the older, the stronger resilience. Five underlying dimensions was identified, which can be seen as reflection of the theoretical assumptions behind the RS scale. The RS scale seems applicable to a Swedish population.