Validation of a Modified CD-RISC: Including Previously Unaccounted for Resilience Variables

Background. Resilience is considered as the capacity to overcome adversity. Identifying psychiatric patients with lower resilience scores may assist mental health or other healthcare professionals in tailoring treatment to patients’ needs. The original 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) has been used widely to measure resilience. However, the factor structure of CD-RISC in the original paper has not been replicated in subsequent studies. We sought to modify the original 25-item CD-RISC to achieve a stable factor structure. Methods. The original 25-item CD-RISC was modified to include three new items, and most original items were revised for clarity and relevance for respondents, to achieve a more precise and accurate response. A few items were deleted based on empirically driven modifications. A total of 266 respondents were obtained from a university-based psychiatric outpatient clinic and hospital psychiatric outpatient clinic. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Results. A four-dimension factor structure was identified using this data set. One item, “have to act on hunch” was deleted from the factor analysis due to weak correlation with the other variables. The instrument had excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.94). Conclusions. The modified 27-item CD-RISC achieved a stable factor structure and high internal consistency, and generated a more interpretable result than the original CD-RISC