Development and Validation of a Brief Measure of Psychological Resilience: An Adaptation of the Response to Stressful Experiences Scale

Resilience helps determine how people respond to stress. The Response to Stressful Events Scale (RSES)1 is an existing 22-item measure of resilience. We investigate the psychometric properties of the RSES and develop a 4-item measure of resilience using the most discriminating items from the RSES. Among two samples of military personnel presenting to mental health clinics, we see that the abbreviated resilience measure displays comparable internal consistency and test–retest reliability (versus the existing RSES). Among a sample of deployed military personnel, the abbreviated scale relates to validated measures of psychological strain. The 4-item abbreviated RSES measure is a brief, reliable, and valid measure of resilience.