Development and Validation of a Resilience Skills Questionnaire for Health Sector Professionals Based on Social Cognitive Theory

Abstract

Good resilience skills support effective and timely adjustment to demanding situations in the workplace. Existing tools are insufficient to develop and evaluate workplace interventions to improve employee’s resilience skills. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a Resilience Skills Questionnaire (RSQ) using the key constructs of social cognitive theory—self-efficacy, self-regulation, and social support—as a theoretical framework. Following DeVellis’ guidelines for scale development, first an expert panel of thirteen professors was recruited to support the item development stages and determine content validity. At this stage, the initial pool of 38 items was reduced to 25 items and CVR and CVI were calculated as 0.92 and 0.93, respectively, indicating good content validity. A second panel of ten health professionals confirmed face validity. An online survey comprised of the 25 developed items was then completed by 336 health professionals working in urban healthcare centers in Shiraz, Iran, in November 2021. The data were used to assess the psychometrics of the questionnaire according to its hypothesized three-dimensional structure. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded a final model of seventeen items in three dimensions, self-efficacy (six items), social support (six items), and self-regulation (five items), with good psychometric properties (${\chi }^2/\text{df}=2.44$ ($p<0.001$), $\text{RMSEA}=0.06$, $\text{GFI}=0.92$, $\text{AGFI}=0.90$, $\text{IFI}=0.93$, $\text{CFI}=0.93$). All standardized factor loadings were significant ($p<0.001$). Internal consistency, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was very good: RSQ (0.90), self-efficacy (0.86), social support (0.83), and self-regulation (0.86). Based on these results, the RSQ can be used as a standard and valid measure to develop and evaluate the effect of educational intervention programs to improve resilience skills and reduce job stress.