Resilience Scale for Older Adults

📜
Abstract

The global demographic shift toward an aging population has brought increased attention to the psychological well-being of seniors. In late life, individuals frequently confront unique and profound stressors, ranging from the onset of chronic health conditions to the bereavement of close friends and spouses. Navigating these inevitable hardships requires a robust psychological buffer. Resilience—the dynamic capacity to adapt, recover, and even experience personal growth following adversity—serves as this critical protective mechanism. Recognizing the need for age-appropriate measurement tools, researchers have increasingly focused on instruments tailored specifically to the geriatric experience.

The Resilience Scale for Older adults (RSOA) was originally designed to capture the nuanced ways in which seniors draw upon internal and external resources to cope with life's challenges. Unlike generic resilience measures that often focus on younger populations, this tool incorporates dimensions highly relevant to aging, such as accumulated life experience and spirituality. The recent validation of the Turkish version of the RSOA extends the utility of this instrument into a new cultural context, providing researchers and clinicians in Turkey with a psychometrically sound tool to evaluate psychological hardiness in individuals aged 65 and older.

Through rigorous translation and psychometric testing, the Turkish adaptation successfully mirrors the original scale's architecture. It offers a reliable and valid method for quantifying resilience, paving the way for targeted interventions. By accurately measuring how well Older adults can withstand and bounce back from age-related adversities, healthcare professionals can better identify those at risk for depression or declining quality of life, ultimately fostering healthier, more Successful aging trajectories.

🏷
Keywords
Psychological resilience
Older adults
psychometrics
Cross-cultural validation
gerontology
Successful aging
Turkish adaptation

📊 Psychometric Scorecard

Items Count
33
Structure
Multidimensional
Cronbach's α
0.93
Validation Country
📍 Turkey

Translation Method: Translation-retranslation

Authors

👤 Seher Palanbek Yavaş
🏛 Department of Public Health, Canakkale (18th March) University, Çanakkale, Turkey

👤 Caner Baysan
✉ [email protected]
🏛 Department of Public Health, Ege University, İzmir, Turkey

Purpose

Historically, the psychological study of resilience heavily emphasized child development and adolescent coping mechanisms. While numerous scales were created to measure how youth overcome early adversity, these instruments often fail to capture the specific environmental and psychological realities of late adulthood. Older adults do not typically face the same developmental hurdles as teenagers; instead, they grapple with existential concerns, physical decline, financial shifts post-retirement, and the shrinking of social circles. The Resilience Scale for Older adults was developed specifically to bridge this measurement gap by focusing on the protective factors most utilized by the elderly.

The adaptation of this scale into Turkish serves a vital purpose for cross-cultural gerontology and public health. As Turkey experiences its own demographic aging, local clinicians and researchers require culturally sensitive, validated tools to assess psychological well-being. By providing a localized version of the RSOA, this validation study equips professionals with the means to accurately evaluate resilience, track the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions, and better understand the relationship between psychological hardiness and Successful aging in Turkish seniors.

Construct

Psychological resilience in the context of aging is conceptualized not merely as the absence of pathology following trauma, but as an active, multidimensional process of positive adaptation. It involves leveraging a combination of personal traits, social assets, and accumulated wisdom to maintain psychological equilibrium despite the compounding losses often associated with getting older. The theoretical framework underpinning the RSOA posits that resilience in late life is sustained by four distinct pillars of protective factors.

The instrument operationalizes this construct through four sub-dimensions. The Intrapersonal domain assesses internal psychological strengths, such as self-efficacy and emotional regulation. The Interpersonal domain evaluates the individual's ability to draw upon social support networks, recognizing that community and family ties are crucial buffers against isolation. The Spiritual dimension captures the role of faith, religious practice, or a broader sense of existential meaning in providing comfort during difficult times. Finally, the Experiential domain—perhaps the most unique to older populations—measures how individuals utilize the wisdom and perspective gained from surviving past hardships to navigate current adversities.

Validity

The validation process for the Turkish adaptation of the RSOA involved a comprehensive evaluation of multiple validity types to ensure the tool accurately measures what it claims to measure. Content validity was rigorously established through expert panel reviews using the Davis method, yielding an exceptional Content Validity Index of 0.98. This indicates near-unanimous agreement among geriatric and public health experts that the translated items are both culturally appropriate and highly relevant to the target demographic.

Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated strong convergent validity by examining how the RSOA scores related to other established psychological constructs. As theoretically expected, resilience showed a robust positive correlation with quality of life (r = 0.657), confirming that Older adults who possess higher resilience also report better overall life satisfaction and well-being. This alignment with external criteria provides compelling evidence that the Turkish RSOA functions exactly as a measure of psychological hardiness should within a clinical or research setting.

Convergent & Discriminant Validation Correlations

Reference Instrument Correlation Coefficient (r)
Quality of Life in Older adults Scale—Short Form (OPQOL-Brief) r=0.657

Reliability

Reliability testing ensures that a psychometric instrument produces stable and consistent results across different contexts and items. For the Turkish RSOA, internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha, which yielded an impressive coefficient of 0.93 for the overall scale. In psychometric terms, any value above 0.80 is generally considered good, and a value exceeding 0.90 indicates excellent cohesion among the test items, meaning the 33 questions reliably measure the same underlying construct of resilience without excessive redundancy.

In addition to internal consistency, the researchers employed the split-half reliability method to further verify the scale's stability. By randomly dividing the scale into two halves and comparing the scores, they obtained a Guttman split-half coefficient of 0.723. This secondary metric comfortably exceeds the standard acceptable threshold of 0.70, providing layered evidence that the Turkish adaptation of the RSOA is a highly dependable tool for assessing resilience in older populations.

Factor Analysis

To verify the structural integrity of the translated scale, the researchers utilized both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to see how the items naturally grouped together in the Turkish sample without preconceived constraints. The results successfully mirrored the original English version, with items loading cleanly onto four distinct factors. The item loadings were robust, ranging from 0.406 to 0.947, indicating that each question contributed meaningfully to its respective sub-dimension.

Following the EFA, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to rigorously test the fit of this four-factor, 33-item model against the empirical data. The analysis yielded good fit indices, confirming that the theoretical architecture of the scale—comprising Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Spiritual, and Experiential dimensions—holds true in the Turkish cultural context. This structural validation is critical, as it assures researchers that the multidimensional nature of resilience in Older adults is preserved across linguistic boundaries.

Subscales

Subscale Items Description
Intrapersonal 1-12 Measures internal psychological strengths, personal coping mechanisms, and self-efficacy.
Interpersonal 13-21 Assesses the ability to utilize social support networks, family ties, and community relationships.
Spiritual 22-27 Evaluates the role of faith, religious beliefs, and existential meaning in coping with adversity.
Experiential 28-33 Captures the application of wisdom and perspective gained from past life challenges to current difficulties.

Instrument

Test Type Self-report questionnaire
Format 33 items, 5-point Likert scale
Scoring Items are scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Total scores range from 33 to 165, with higher scores indicating greater Psychological resilience. There are no reverse-scored items.
Language Turkish
Population Older adults
Age Group 65 and older
Administration Face-to-face interview
Completion Time 25–30 minutes

Scoring & Interpretation Guidelines

Scoring Instructions No reverse-scored items. Sum all items for a total score between 33 and 165.

Resilience Scale for Older Adults Items

📋 Items are currently not available

The individual items of this scale are not publicly available. Researchers interested in using this instrument should contact the original authors directly to request the scale materials.

Sample

The study included 566 volunteer participants aged 65 and older (mean age 71.7 ± 5.2 years), comprising 56.2% women. Participants were recruited from the Altın Yıllar Yaşam Merkezi (Golden Years Life Center) in the city center of Çanakkale, Turkey.

Permissions & Test Year

Permission to adapt and validate the scale was obtained via email from the original author, Claire Wilson.

Test Year: 2025

📄
Cite This Paper

Seher Palanbek Yavaş, Caner Baysan (2025). Resilience Scale for Older adults. PeerJ. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.18837

📄 Download Full-Text PDF

📚
References
68 references
  1. Alpar (2018). Applied statistics and validity-reliability with examples from sports, health, and educational sciences.
  2. American Psychological Association (APA) (2024). Resilience.
  3. Ang (2018). Association between demographics and resilience—a cross-sectional study among nurses in Singapore. International Nursing Review, 65 (3), 459. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12441
  4. Babić (2020). Resilience in health and illness. Psychiatria Danubina, 32 (Suppl 2), 226.
  5. Baltaci (2014). Validity and reliability of the resilience scale for early adolescents. Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 131 458. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.04.148
  6. Basım (2011). The reliability and validity of the resilience scale for adults-Turkish version. Turkish Journal of Psychiatry, 22 (2), 104.
  7. Beaton (2000). Guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures. Spine, 25 (24), 3186. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1097/00007632-200012150-00014
  8. Bhatnagar (2021). Rethinking stress resilience. Trends in Neurosciences, 44 (12), 936. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2021.09.005
  9. Bowling (2013). A short measure of quality of life in older age: the performance of the brief older people’s quality of life questionnaire (OPQOL-brief). Archives of gerontology and Geriatrics, 56 (1), 181. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2012.08.012
  10. Burke (1991). The short form of the geriatric depression scale: a comparison with the 30-item form. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 4 (3), 173. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1177/089198879100400310
  11. Caliskan (2019). Turkish validation of a new scale from older people’s perspectives: Older People’s Quality of Life-Brief (OPQOL-brief). Archives of gerontology and Geriatrics, 83 (December 2018), 91. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2019.04.002
  12. Calvete (2018). Longitudinal associations between resilience and quality of life in eating disorders. Psychiatry Research, 259 (3), 470. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.11.031
  13. Chuang (2023). Resilience and quality of life in people with mental illness: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 19 507. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S392332
  14. Clark (2018). Understanding religion and spirituality in clinical practice. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429484551
  15. Cohen (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences.
  16. Cohen (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24 (4), 385. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404
  17. Connor (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: the connor-davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18 (2), 76. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6394
  18. Cosco (2016). Resilience measurement in later life: a systematic review and psychometric analysis. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 14 (1), 1. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-016-0418-6
  19. Cosco (2019). Conceptualising and operationalising resilience in Older adults. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 7 (1), 90. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2019.1593845
  20. Davis (1992). Instrument review: getting the most from a panel of experts. Applied Nursing Research, 5 (4), 194. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0897-1897(05)80008-4
  21. Du (2020). Increased resilience weakens the relationship between perceived stress and anxiety on sleep quality: a moderated mediation analysis of higher education students from 7 countries. Clocks & Sleep, 2 (3), 334. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep2030025
  22. Durmaz (2017). Validity and reliability of Geriatric Depression-15 (short form) in Turkish Older adults. Northern Clinics of Istanbul, 5 (3), 216.
  23. Eskin (2013). The adaptation of the Perceived Stress Scale into Turkish: a reliability and validity analysis. New Symposium, 51 (3), 132.
  24. Fontes (2015). Resilience in aging: literature review. Ciencia e Saude Coletiva, 20 (5), 1475. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232015205.00502014
  25. Goins (2013). Psychometric properties of the connor-davidson resilience scale with older American Indians: the native elder care study. Research on Aging, 35 (2), 123. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027511431989
  26. Gündüz (2008). Neighborhood in Turkish written culture. Electronic Journal of Social Sciences, 25 (7), 123.
  27. Hicks (2014). Resilient ageing: a concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 70 (4), 744. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12226
  28. Işık (2016). Developing the psychological hardiness scale: the validity and reliability study. Happiness and Well-Being, 8 165.
  29. Joshanloo (2013). Mental well-being in Iran: the importance of comprehensive well-being in under standing the linkages of personality and values. 177. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5195-8_9
  30. Kobasa (1979). Stressful life events, personality, and health: an inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 (1), 1. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.1.1
  31. Laird (2019). Psychobiological factors of resilience and depression in late life. Translational Psychiatry, 9 (1), 88. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0424-7
  32. Lameei (2021). The role and evaluation of religion in psychological well-being. IZU Journal of Social Sciences, 19 (9), 57.
  33. Las Hayas (2016). Resilience in eating disorders: a qualitative study. Women & Health, 56 (5), 576. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/03630242.2015.1101744
  34. Lenzo (2022). The Relationship between resilience and sleep quality during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal study. Nature and Science of Sleep, 14 41. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S344042
  35. Lima (2023). Resilience in older people: a concept analysis. Healthcare, 11 (18), 2491. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11182491
  36. Liu (2016). Associations of perceived stress, resilience and social support with sleep disturbance among community-dwelling adults. Stress and Health, 32 (5), 578. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2664
  37. Li (2019). Relationship between stressful life events and sleep quality: rumination as a mediator and resilience as a moderator. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10 348. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00348
  38. Li (2022). Development of resilience scale for Older adults. Aging and Mental Health, 26 (1), 159. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2020.1861212
  39. Lyons (1991). Strategies for assessing the potential for positive adjustment following trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 4 (1), 93. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.2490040108
  40. Mandıracıoğlu (2017). Evaluation of opinions towards elderly in Türkiye and Turkish republics. Elderly Issues Research Journal, 10 (2), 76.
  41. Martin (2015). Development of a new multidimensional individual and interpersonal resilience measure for Older adults. Aging & Mental Health, 19 (1), 32. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2014.909383
  42. Martínez-Moreno (2020). Older adults’ gender, age and physical activity effects on anxiety, optimism, resilience and engagement. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (20), 1. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17207561
  43. Murphy (1987). Further reflections on resilience. 84.
  44. Ong (2009). Resilience comes of age: defining features in later adulthood. Journal of Personality, 77 (6), 1777. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00600.x
  45. O’Rourke (2013). Step-by-step approach to using sas for factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
  46. Oshio (2003). Construct validity of the adolescent resilience scale. Psychological Reports, 93 (3), 1217. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2003.93.3f.1217
  47. Özyer (2012). A study of demographic traits, personality traits and cultural values of workers in health sector. Mustafa Kemal University Journal of Social Sciences Institute, 9 (19), 177.
  48. Parmaksız (2020). The effects of optimism, altruism and marital status on the Psychological resilience. Pamukkale University Journal of Education, 48 285. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.9779/pauefd.576186
  49. Perez-Rojo (2022). A multidimensional approach to the resilience in Older adults despite COVID-19. BMC Geriatrics, 22 793. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-03472-y
  50. Post (2018). Quality of life in stabilized outpatients with bipolar I disorder: associations with resilience, internalized stigma, and residual symptoms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 238 (Suppl 20), 399. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.05.055
  51. Rantanen (2018). Resilience and external support. BMC Public Health, 18 565. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5487-5
  52. Rutter (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57 (3), 316. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1987.tb03541.x
  53. Schermelleh-Engel (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. MPR-Online, 8 (2), 23. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.12784
  54. Seong (2022). Resilience in relation to Older adults with multimorbidity: a scoping review. Geriatric Nursing, 48 85. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2022.08.017
  55. Sihvola (2022). Resilience and related factors in colorectal cancer patients: a systematic review. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 56 (May 2021), 102079. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejon.2021.102079
  56. Smith (2008). The brief resilience scale: assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15 (3), 194. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972
  57. Southwick (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: interdisciplinary perspectives. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5 (1), 1. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338
  58. Southwick (2023). Resilience: the science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009299725
  59. Ungar (2008). The study of youth resilience across cultures: lessons from a pilot study of measurement development. Research in Human Development, 5 (3), 166. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/15427600802274019
  60. von Eisenhart Rothe (2013). Validation and development of a shorter version of the resilience scale RS-11: results from the population-based KORA-age study. BMC Psychology, 1 25. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/2050-7283-1-25
  61. Wartelsteiner (2016). Quality of life in stabilized patients with schizophrenia is mainly associated with resilience and self-esteem. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 134 (4), 360. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.12628
  62. Wilson (2022). Assessing resilience in older adulthood: development and validation of the resilience scale for Older adults. Canadian Journal on Aging, 41 (2), 214. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0714980821000155
  63. Wilson (2021). Developing a model of resilience in older adulthood: a qualitative meta-synthesis. Ageing and Society, 41 (8), 1920. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X20000112
  64. Windle (2011). A methodology review of resilience measurement scales. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 9 (1), 2. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-9-8
  65. Yaşlıoğlu (2017). Factor analysis and validity in social sciences: application of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Istanbul University Journal of the School of Business, l (Special Issue), 74.
  66. Yesavage (1982). Development and validation of a geriatric depression screening scale: a preliminary report. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 17 (1), 37. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3956(82)90033-4
  67. Yesavage (1986). 9/Geriatric depression scale (GDS): recent evidence and development of a shorter version. Clinical Gerontologist, 5 (1–2), 165. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1300/J018v05n01_09
  68. Yıldırım (2021). Relationship between piety and Psychological resilience in adults. Turkish Academic Research Review, 6 (1), 27.

Cite this article

Mohammed looti (2026). Resilience Scale for Older Adults. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/resilience-scale-for-older-adults/

Mohammed looti. "Resilience Scale for Older Adults." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 14 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/resilience-scale-for-older-adults/.

Mohammed looti. "Resilience Scale for Older Adults." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/resilience-scale-for-older-adults/.

Mohammed looti (2026) 'Resilience Scale for Older Adults', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/resilience-scale-for-older-adults/.

[1] Mohammed looti, "Resilience Scale for Older Adults," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.

Mohammed looti. Resilience Scale for Older Adults. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.

Related terms:

  1. Resilience Scale for Community-Dwelling Older Adults
  2. Physical Activity Behavior Scale for Older Adults
  3. State-Trait Assessment of Resilience Scale
  4. Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale
  5. Brief Resilience Scale (BRS)
  6. Ego Resilience Scale
  7. Resilience Scale (RS)
  8. Ego Resilience Scale
  9. Ego Resilience Scale
  10. Family Resilience Assessment Scale (FRAS)
× Figure
PDF
Scroll to Top