Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale

The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was developed by Kathryn M. Connor and Jonathan R.T. Davidson as a means of assessing resilience. The CD-RISC is based on Connor and Davidson's operational definition of resilience, which is the ability to 'thrive in the face of adversity.' Since its development in 2003, the CD-RISC has been tested in a several contexts with a variety of populations (see Generalizability) and has been modified into different versions (see Forms). The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was developed by Kathryn M. Connor and Jonathan R.T. Davidson as a means of assessing resilience. The CD-RISC is based on Connor and Davidson's operational definition of resilience, which is the ability to 'thrive in the face of adversity.' Since its development in 2003, the CD-RISC has been tested in a several contexts with a variety of populations (see Generalizability) and has been modified into different versions (see Forms). The CD-RISC was created to improve on existing measures of resilience (e.g., hardiness or perceived stress). Existing scales of resilience were considered inadequate because they lacked generalizability. With this in mind, the CD-RISC was tested using a variety of populations to increase the generalizability of the measure. These groups included a community sample, primary care outpatients, general psychiatric outpatients, a clinical trial of generalized anxiety disorder, and two clinical trials of PTSD. The authors drew inspiration for the scale's content from the work of previous researchers of hardiness, most notably S.C. Kobasa and M. Rutter. The CD-RISC consists of 25 items, which are evaluated on a five point Likert scale ranging from 0-4: not true at all (0), rarely true (1), sometimes true (2), often true (3), and true nearly all of the time (4) - these ratings result in a number between 0-100, and higher scores indicate higher resilience. Factor analysis of the original scale produced five factors: The individual items are as follows (table adapted from Connor and Davidson 2003): There are a lack of studies that support the construct validity of the CD-RISC. In order for a measure to demonstrate good construct validity, it needs to be based on a complex, detailed theoretical construct (i.e., nomological network). If the measure has good construct validity, then it should 'behave' as a measure of this complex concept should behave. The CD-RISC has been associated as expected (i.e., either positively or negatively) with various constructs, such as family functioning and depressive symptoms. However, it needs to be tested in relation to a more complex theory to better establish construct validity. Scores on the CD-RISC have been compared to several scales designed to measure the same or a similar construct. CD-RISC scores have been significantly positively correlated with a measure of hardiness. Also, the CD-RISC significantly negatively correlated with both the Perceived Stress Scale and the Sheehan Stress Vulnerability Scale. This indicates that the resilience scores obtained from the CD-RISC correspond to lower levels of perceived stress and perceived stress vulnerability, respectively. All of these findings indicate suggests good convergent validity of the CD-RISC. Bezdjian and colleagues (2017) used the CD-RISC to examine the relationship between resilience and 6-month unsuitability attrition (i.e., separation from the military due to difficulties with mental health or behavioral adjustments) and between resilience and mental health diagnosis at 6 months after the start of basic training. Results indicated that service members who were separated from the Air Force due to unsuitability had reported lower levels of resilience at basic training as compared to those who were not separated. Service members diagnosed with a mental disorder at 6 months of service had also reported lower levels of resilience at basic training as compared to those who were not diagnosed with a mental disorder. The effect size of both associations was medium, which points to moderate predictive validity of the CD-RISC.