Protective Resilience Factors in Institutionalised Portuguese Adolescents

AbstractBackgroundThe term resilience, long used in physics, has only “recently” been adapted to psychology, but it immediately assumed great importance in human development studies.AimTo verify the most important resilience factors among institutionalised adolescents.MethodA cross-sectional, descriptive-correlational, quantitative study. The subjects were 40 institutionalized adolescents, aged between 12 and 17, selected through non-probability convenience sampling. Data was collected during 2012, with a research protocol consisting of: a form of socio-demographic characteristics, the Wagnild Resilience Scale, the Self Perception Profile for Adolescents Scale (both validated for the Portuguese population) and an adaptation of the Social Competence Scale.ResultsMostly female adolescents with a mean age of 14.33 years. There is a relationship between resilience and self-esteem, self-concept and social competence. Males from CBEI – Our Lady of Sorrows Child Welfare Centre of Mafra manifest higher levels of resilience than females from the Santa Isabel Home. There is no relationship between religious practice, age and education and resilience.ConclusionThe inferences from this study lead us to reflect on the importance of creating intervention programmes for institutionalised children and adolescents in order to optimise their resources enhancing the protective factors of resilience, and ultimately resilience itself