Validity and reliability of the German versions of the CD-RISC-10 and CD-RISC-2

The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) is an established instrument to assess trait resilience. The present study investigates the psychometric properties of the brief German CD-RISC-10 and CD-RISC-2 in an online sample of 360 students. The CD-RISC-10 showed good reliability, whereas the CD-RISC-2 just missed an acceptable level of reliability. The unifactorial structure of the CD-RISC-10 was supported in a confirmatory factor analysis. Correlational analysis with various clinical and non-clinical constructs (e.g., trait resilience, trait emotional intelligence, life satisfaction, well-being, perceived stress, sleep problems, anxiety, depression, and mental and physical health related quality of life) provided evidence for convergent, divergent, and incremental validity of both brief versions of the CD-RISC. Measured with the CD-RISC-10, trait resilience buffered the effects of perceived stress on life satisfaction and aggregated mental health problems, but not on physical health related quality of life. For the CD-RISC-2, a buffer effect was only found for life satisfaction. Taken together, the results of the present study provide support for the validity of the CD-RISC-10 and, to a lesser extent, of the CD-RISC-2. Implications and limitations of the results will be discussed.