Publication year
2010
Citation Title
Profiles of personal resiliency for normative and clinical samples of youth assessed by the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents.
Journal Name
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment
Journal Volume
28
Issue Number
4
Page Numbers
303-314
DOI
10.1177/0734282910366833
Summary
Survey data were used to determine resiliency profiles of a normative and an outpatient clinical sample of youth. This research examined the background characteristics associated with each profile and compared the profiles of the normative sample to those of the clinical samples. Three profiles were identified for the normative sample and four profiles were found for the outpatient sample. These profiles indicated some differences and some similarities between the two groups. Demographic variables (e.g., gender, parent education) influenced which profiles youth were assigned.
Key Findings
The normative group had three profiles: high resiliency (31%), average resiliency (44%), and low resource vulnerability (25%).
Four profiles were found for the clinical group: average resiliency (23%), low resource vulnerability (26%), high vulnerability (31%), and very high vulnerability (20%).
In the normative sample, those with the high resilient profiles were slightly more often girls (59%) that had parents with some college or graduate education (63%).
Within the outpatient clinical sample, youth diagnosed with depression were most likely to be assigned to the very high vulnerability profile (38%).
Implications for Military Professionals
Facilitate support groups for military children considered at-risk for mental health or behavioral issues
Attend training about depression among youth and ways to improve depression symptoms to enhance their ability to provide support to military families coping with youth depression
Implications for Program Leaders
Deliver curriculum content developed to foster growth in resilience and to buffer or reduce vulnerability
Screen military youth for resiliency so that youth who are found to display a low resource vulnerability profile can receive early preventive interventions
Implications for Policy Makers
Recommend that programs evaluate military youths resiliency profiles
Initiate new and maintain existing programs and services available for children and youth to encourage and sustain resiliency (e.g., positive youth development programs, counseling services)
Methods
Youth for the normative sample were drawn from four U.S. regions and were split by gender and stratified to match the U.S. census by race and parental education level.
Youth in the clinical sample included youth who had a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition (Text Revision) disorder diagnosis within the past three months.
Comparisons between the normative and clinical samples were made to determine whether participants background characteristics were differentiated by their resiliency profiles.
Participants
Children (9-18 years of age) were sampled from normative (N = 641) and clinical (N = 285) populations.
The majority of the normative sample (61%) and clinical samples (70%) were White.
Participants in the clinical sample had a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of unipolar depression (26%), anxiety disorder (19%), conduct disorder (29%), or another disorders (26%).
Limitations
The samples were deliberately constructed to reflect the demographic characteristics of youth living in the United States, but without oversampling ethnic minorities, the findings cannot be generalized.
The study controlled only for status differences (i.e., age, gender, parent education) and not for childhood adversity, which could influence the results.
Other aspects of the outcomes may be missed if only one informant was used. For instance, using a different definition or measure of resilience may lead to a different pattern of results.
Avenues for Future Research
Examine the resiliency of youth with parents serving in the military (e.g., how best to define resiliency, what resiliency profiles of military youth exist)
Explore of resiliency in military youth differs from resiliency in other samples of youth
Assess ways in which programs serving military youth can enhance resiliency among this population and what factors (e.g., deployment) reduce resiliency
Focus
Civilian
Target Population
Population Focus
Abstract
Cluster analyses with the three global scores of the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents™ (RSCA) were used to determine personal resiliency profiles within normative (641) and outpatient clinical (285) samples of youth aged 9 to 18 years. Normative and clinical profiles were compared with each other and the clinical profiles were then compared with profiles previously found for an inpatient psychiatric sample. Three profiles were identified for the normative sample indicating high resiliency (31%), average resiliency (44%), and low resource vulnerability (25%). The four profiles that were found in the predominately outpatient sample matched Kumar et al.'s profiles and represented average resiliency (23%), low resource vulnerability (26%), high vulnerability (31%), and very high vulnerability (20%). Comparison of the normative and outpatient clinical samples indicated differences in resiliency profiles as well as overlap. Implications for preventive screening and treatment of youth are discussed.
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