Table of Contents
Abstract
The Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale (DARS) is a psychological assessment tool designed to evaluate how individuals cope with and recover from catastrophic natural events. Originally developed for populations in the United States, the instrument captures the multifaceted nature of human resilience, moving beyond simple survival to encompass the psychological, social, and physical resources necessary for effective Adaptation. The Vietnamese version of this instrument (V-DARS) was specifically adapted to address the unique environmental and socioeconomic vulnerabilities faced by communities in Southeast Asia, a region disproportionately impacted by Climate change and extreme weather.
By measuring five distinct domains of resilience—ranging from tangible physical assets to internal emotional regulation—the scale provides researchers and public health officials with a comprehensive profile of community readiness and vulnerability. This granular understanding is critical for designing targeted interventions, allocating resources efficiently during recovery efforts, and ultimately building more robust communities capable of withstanding future environmental shocks.
📊 Psychometric Scorecard
35
Multidimensional
0.96
0.96
0.912
Authors
Purpose
The primary objective of the V-DARS is to provide a culturally and linguistically appropriate metric for assessing Disaster resilience in Vietnamese populations, particularly those residing in high-risk coastal zones. While global frameworks like the Sendai Framework emphasize the importance of grassroots resilience, there has historically been a shortage of validated psychometric tools tailored to the specific socioeconomic realities of developing nations in disaster-prone regions.
This instrument bridges a critical gap in environmental and community psychology by offering a standardized method to quantify adaptive capacity. For public health professionals and policymakers, having a reliable measure means they can identify which specific resources—whether social support networks or problem-solving skills—are lacking in a given community. This allows for the shift from reactive disaster management to proactive resilience building, ensuring that interventions are empirically grounded and tailored to actual community needs.
Construct
The psychological construct of Disaster resilience measured by the V-DARS is conceptualized as a multidimensional framework encompassing both internal psychological traits and external environmental assets. Rather than viewing resilience as a static personality trait, this model treats it as a dynamic interplay of resources that individuals mobilize in the aftermath of a crisis.
The scale operationalizes this construct through five distinct but interrelated dimensions. 'Physical resources' and 'Social resources' represent the external scaffolding of resilience, capturing access to tangible necessities and community support networks. Conversely, 'Distress regulation', 'Problem-solving', and 'Optimism' reflect internal cognitive and emotional competencies. Together, these dimensions align with broader ecological models of human development, suggesting that successful Adaptation to severe environmental stressors requires both a supportive external environment and robust internal coping mechanisms.
Validity
The validation process for the V-DARS rigorously examined both its internal structure and its relationship to theoretical expectations. Construct validity was established through a two-step approach utilizing both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The researchers demonstrated strong convergent validity, evidenced by Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values exceeding standard thresholds (specifically, an AVE of 0.53), which indicates that the items within each subscale reliably measure the same underlying concept.
Furthermore, discriminant validity was confirmed using the Fornell-Larcker criterion, ensuring that the five dimensions of the scale are statistically distinct from one another. The confirmatory Factor analysis yielded acceptable model fit indices, including a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.912 and a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.072. These metrics collectively affirm that the 35-item, five-factor structure accurately represents the theoretical model of Disaster resilience within this specific cultural context.
Reliability
The V-DARS demonstrates exceptional internal consistency, which is a crucial indicator of a psychometric tool's precision and stability. The overall scale yielded both a Cronbach's alpha and a McDonald's omega of 0.963, values that reflect an extremely high degree of interrelatedness among the test items.
Beyond the global score, each of the five individual subscales also exhibited strong reliability, with coefficients consistently exceeding the 0.80 threshold. This level of internal consistency suggests that the instrument is highly reliable for both research purposes and potential community assessments, as it minimizes measurement error. The use of McDonald's omega alongside the traditional alpha is particularly noteworthy, as omega does not assume tau-equivalence and often provides a more accurate estimate of reliability for multidimensional scales.
Factor Analysis
The structural integrity of the V-DARS was refined through a meticulous Exploratory Factor analysis (EFA) followed by a Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA). The EFA utilized maximum likelihood extraction with orthogonal rotation to uncover the latent variables driving the responses. During this phase, the researchers applied stringent item-retention criteria, systematically removing eight items from the original 43-item pool due to low factor loadings (below 0.50), problematic cross-loadings, or insufficient item counts per factor.
This empirical pruning resulted in a streamlined 35-item instrument that cleanly maps onto five distinct factors. The subsequent CFA validated this refined structure, demonstrating that the observed data fit the hypothesized five-factor model well. The acceptable fit indices, such as a Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) of 0.904 and a highly significant chi-square test, confirm that the translation and cultural Adaptation process successfully preserved the core dimensional structure of the original scale while optimizing it for the target population.
Subscales
| Subscale | Items | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Social Resources | 8 items | Measures access to community support networks and interpersonal assistance during and after disasters. |
| Distress Regulation | 9 items | Evaluates internal emotional competencies and the ability to manage psychological stress following catastrophic events. |
| Problem-Solving | 8 items | Assesses cognitive strategies and practical skills used to navigate challenges and overcome disaster-related obstacles. |
| Optimism | 6 items | Captures positive future orientation and the belief in one's capacity to recover from adverse environmental impacts. |
| Physical Resources | 4 items | Quantifies access to tangible necessities and material assets required for survival and recovery. |
Instrument
| Test Type | Self-report questionnaire |
| Format | 35 items, 5-point Likert scale (0=not true at all to 4=true nearly all of the time) |
| Scoring | Items are summed or averaged within their respective subscales. Higher scores indicate greater levels of disaster Adaptation and resilience. |
| Language | Vietnamese |
| Population | General population, Adults |
| Age Group | 18-89 years |
| Administration | Interviewer-administered or self-administered |
Scoring & Interpretation Guidelines
| Scoring Instructions | The final scale consists of 35 items across 5 factors. Eight items from the original 43-item DARS were removed during the validation process due to poor psychometric performance in this population. |
Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale 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 595 Adults (mean age 52.23 years, SD=16.71) residing in two vulnerable coastal communities in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. Participants were required to have experienced a flood or typhoon in the past year.
Cite This Paper
Thanh Gia Nguyen, Binh Thang Tran, Minh Tu Nguyen, Dinh Duong Le (2024). Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale. Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi. https://doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.24.110
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Cite this article
Mohammed looti (2026). Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/vietnamese-version-of-the-disaster-adaptation-and-resilience-scale/
Mohammed looti. "Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 14 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/vietnamese-version-of-the-disaster-adaptation-and-resilience-scale/.
Mohammed looti. "Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/vietnamese-version-of-the-disaster-adaptation-and-resilience-scale/.
Mohammed looti (2026) 'Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/vietnamese-version-of-the-disaster-adaptation-and-resilience-scale/.
[1] Mohammed looti, "Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.
Mohammed looti. Vietnamese version of the Disaster Adaptation and Resilience Scale. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.