Resilience in Children and Adolescents Survived Psychologically Traumatic Life Events: A Critical Review of Application of Resilience Assessment Tools for Clinical Referral and Intervention

Abstract

Psychological traumatic life events (TLEs) and resilience, both are multidimensional, complex, and share salient features. Both are products of individual, familial, and environmental (socio-cultural-political contextual) variables, which is very crucial in children and adolescents. This systematic review used Boolean search strategies in electronic databases, namely, PubMED, PsycNET, JStor, and Google scholar. All researches not studying resilience per se but similar or related constructs such as life strengths, hardiness, protective/risk factors, social support, self-efficacy, social-emotional adjustment, and so on were excluded. A total of 12 resilience tools meant for children between 5 and 18 years were reviewed. The scale characteristics were analyzed in terms of targeted age-group of sample; purpose (i.e. screening and profiling for intervention); number of items; purpose/type of scale; year, country, and domain wise distribution; response format, standardization sample profile; psychometric properties; and availability of manual with norms of cutoff score. Although no scale was originally developed for children and adolescent population with history of TLEs particularly various forms of abuse and trauma, Child and Youth Resilience Measure and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale had small samples of children from welfare homes. Neither did any scale tested the divergent validity against absence of any psychopathology or global functioning or poor quality of life Nor did Majority of scales provide a cutoff value for institutionalized children and adolescents with history of TLEs; therefore, using an existing scale for this purpose should be carefully examined. Trauma-focused multidimensionality in resilience needs to be explored more rigorously through mixed methods.