Resilience, ability to be psychologically positive and adapt to an adverse situation, it allows a person to maintain an internal and external sense of balance during stressful situations. It is an important identifier in resistance to risk across a life span how humans bounce back and deal with various challenges. Resilience has various definitions proposed in relation to humans in psychological research, and most definitions are based on adversity and positive adaptation. The availability of various definitions and dimensions on resilience maybe due to the historical development of the concept or the increasing interest on the subject area. (Gill Windle, 2010). Some famous available definitions are; “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress” (American Psychological Association,2014), “the process of effectively negotiating, adapting to, or managing significant sources of stress or trauma”. (Gill Windle, 2010) ‘‘The personal qualities that enables one to thrive in the face of adversity’ (Conor Davidson,2003)’‘The capacity of individuals to cope successfully with significant change, adversity or risk’’ (Lee & Cranford, 2008).
Resilience may have various definitions but in defining resilience it is also important to specify whether resilience is being viewed as a trait, a process, or an outcome(Southwick S,2014 ).
Resilience could be the key to explaining resistance to risk across the lifespan and how people ‘bounce back’ and deal with various challenges presented from child- hood to older age, such as ill-health(Gill Windle,2011)
However, in reality, resilience more likely exists on a continuum that may be present to differing degrees across multiple domains of life (Pietrzak RH,2011). Determinants of resilience include a host of biological, psychological, social and cultural factors that interact with one another to determine how one responds to stressful experiences(APA,2011).
Besides biological factors (e.g. gene-environment interactions) and personal factors (e.g. self- efficacy, flexibility, optimism), environmental factors -most notably social support -contribute to an individual’s resilience (Martin Matzka,2016).
The evolution and in-depth information gained over the years by the resilience research shows three perspectives evident in literature (Nazilla Khanlou,2014).
Focus on individual factors; Originating from psychiatry and developmental psychology, the focus is on within-personal factors and the notion of risk is important (Waller, 2001)
Constructionist approach; Postmodern interpretation, resilience is understood to be a result of negotiations between individuals and their environments, who self- define as healthy among conditions collectively viewed as adverse (Ungar, 2004).
Eco systemic approach;Informed by systems theory, relationships between risk and protective factors are considered, with emphasis on interdependency between individuals and social systems (Barankin, 2007).
However, the most commonly employed and most widely translated and validated measurement scales for resilience tend to focus primarily on personal factors (Eicher,2015).
Although a number of scales have been developed for measuring resilience, they are not widely adopted and no one scale is preferable over the others (Conor Davidson,2003)
2011, windle et all has carried out a methodological review in resilience measurement scales and their results were, nineteen resilience measures were reviewed; four of these were refinements of the original measure. All the measures had some missing information regarding the psychometric properties. Overall, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Resilience Scale for Adults and the Brief Resilience Scale received the best psychometric ratings. The conceptual and theoretical adequacy of a number of the scales was questionable. Kindle et all, 2011 further concludes that no current ‘gold standard’ amongst 15 measures of resilience and the measures developed for adults tended to achieve higher quality assessment scores. A choice of valid resilience measures for use with different populations is urgently needed to under- pin commissioning of new research in a public health, human-wellbeing and policy context.