Psychometric properties of the Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ) in a sample of Swedish adolescents

Background The importance of resilience, and interest in it, has increased markedly in recent years, based on the need to understand why some children and young people have a resilience to stress that others lack. At the same time, there has been a lack of instruments to measure resilience. The aim of this study was to translate the Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ) into Swedish and investigate the psychometrics of this Swedish version. Methods A normative sample of 616 students aged 15-17 was recruited through the school system in five different communities. Students filled out a digitalised composite form consisting of ARQ and three other standardised questionnaires, the Sense of Coherence Scale-13 (Soc-13), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ). Results The ARQ, with five domains and twelve subscales, showed good alpha coefficients [alpha] = .95 for the total scale and subscales ranging between [alpha] = .70 to .91, except for the subscales Emotional insight ([alpha] = 0.69) and Empathy/Tolerance ([alpha] = .61). The convergent validity, which was tested for the first time in this study, was good, especially with the Internal Domain for both SOC-13 and RSES. The confirmatory factor analysis showed a satisfactory construct validity. Finally, some gender differences were seen, with boys scoring higher on the total ARQ scale. Conclusion The study shows that the Swedish translation of ARQ has satisfactory psychometric properties. The ARQ could therefore be used as a tool for adolescents when evaluating the importance of resilience. Keywords: Resilience, Adolescents, ARQ, Psychometric