Design and validation of a community resilience scale in contexts of adversity

Community Resilience has drawn growing interest over recent decades. It is now a key variable in social research and in studies of stress and coping. Despite this, no consensus exists on its concept, components, or measurement.

This study aimed to develop and examine the psychometric properties of a brief community resilience scale grounded in psychosocial processes among Spanish-speaking populations in Argentina and Chile. It also provides translations to support further validation and application in other contexts and presents a conceptual framework consistent with the measure.

A convenience sample of 1,077 participants from Argentina (n = 724) and Chile (n = 353) was recruited. An initial set of items was subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the underlying structure, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test competing models. A multigroup CFA was conducted to assess measurement invariance across countries. Reliability and validity evidence were examined through internal consistency and correlations with related constructs.

Community Resilience was defined as the capacity of a community to cope with collective adversity, regulate collective emotions, and use community resources and social capital to promote collective efficacy. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the CR scale comprises nine items in three dimensions: emotional regulation, social capital, and collective efficacy. The CR-9 scale showed satisfactory psychometric properties (α = 0.862; CFI = 0.981; RMSEA = 0.042). It proved to be a reliable measure with adequate convergent validity with communal mastery, subjective well-being, and social integration. It showed little correlation with individual resilience. Configural and metric invariance, as well as partial scalar invariance, were observed across countries (CFI = 0.961; SRMR = 0.048; RMSEA = 0.055).

These findings provide initial support for a brief, multidimensional measure of community resilience (CR-9) among Spanish-speakers from Argentina and Chile. It measures three aspects: emotional regulation, social capital, and collective efficacy. The CR-9 performed well on reliability and validity tests in both groups. This scale is useful for community and social research, while its multilingual translations may facilitate future cross-cultural validation and use in diverse populations.