The RS14™

Resilience is the capacity to live with purpose, perseverance, equanimity, authenticity, and self-reliance. A strong capacity for resilience leads to lives that are rich, rewarding, and significant. As your resilience grows, you will be better prepared to positively manage change, challenge, and adversity.

Resilient individuals regain their balance and keep going, despite misfortune. They find meaning amidst confusion and tumult. Resilient persons are self-confident and understand their own strengths and abilities. They do not feel a pressure to conform but take pleasure in being unique and will “go it alone” if necessary. Resilient individuals have confidence in their ability to persevere because they have done so before and anticipate rather than fear change and challenges.

Being resilient does not mean that an individual will “bounce back” and return to the same position after experiencing difficulties, but it does mean that equilibrium will be re-established. Resilient persons experience the same difficulties and stressors as everyone else; they are not immune or hardened to stress, but they have learned how to deal with life’s inevitable difficulties and this ability sets them apart.

The RS14™has been used with age groups as young as early teens (13 and 14 years old) as well as the very old (greater than 100 years old). The Flesch Reading Ease is 65.3, which is easily understandable by most 13-year olds. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade level is 6.4, which corresponds with the grade level.

The RS14™ has been associated with health promoting behaviors and self-management of illness in prior studies. More importantly, the RS14™measures the five core characteristics of resilience (purpose, perseverance, self-reliance, equanimity, and authenticity). Individuals, who have a reason to get up in the morning, believe they are capable, and have a drive to keep going, may be more likely to self-manage illness well. This means that a moderate to moderately high score using the RS14™may indicate better self-management potential.

Using the RS14™, the data from thousands of respondents strongly suggest that as one ages, scores on the RS14™ increase. 

The RS14™is consistently and significantly related to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress. When the RS14™ scores increase, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress decrease.

The ‘Terms of Use’ state that if you choose to use the RS14™in your research, you are not allowed to change the wording, number of items, responses, and so forth of the RS14™. This is because the reliability and validity of the RS14™have been tested and reported in its current form and to change the scale may alter the validity and reliability of the RS14™.

Average response time is about 3-4 minutes.

The first thing you need to do is check with me to see if it has already been translated or is in the process of being translated. Then, once you have translated the RS14™retaining the response categories and number of items, it needs to be back-translated to English by someone blind to the original English RS14. The back-translated instrument needs to then be compared to the original RS14™. I am happy to read back-translated versions for accuracy in meaning also. If you are interested in translating the Resilience Scale™ (RS™), RS14™, Resilience Scale for Children™ (RS10™)to a different language, we will require that you follow the WHO translation requirements. Please email me for more information.