Abstract
BACKGROUND: The assessment of resilience as an outcome in adolescents remains a challenge, with few instruments available. Some studies have focused on risk factors, but few have focused on protective factors as a formula for measuring resilient outcomes. AIMS: To adapt a new Suicide Attempt Resilience Scale (SRSA-18) for use with adolescents, analysing its structural validity, the gender and age invariance of the measure, and divergent and convergent validity, together with its reliability. METHOD: The psychometric properties of the scale were assessed in 628 participants aged between 13 and 18 years, of whom 342 (54.5%) were girls. RESULTS: After a process of adaptation for adolescents, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis yielded a three-dimensional structure with adequate goodness-of-fit indices, invariance of the measure according to gender and age, adequate levels of reliability (ω = 0.91), high convergent validity with the 14-Item Resilience Scale and high divergent validity with the suicidal act/planning subdimension of the Adolescent Suicidal Behavior Assessment Scale. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to create and adapt instruments to measure resilience in some populations with high psychosocial vulnerability as a key aspect for measuring the impact of prevention and mental health promotion programmes in adolescents.