Psychometric examination of the Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC-10) among Vietnamese students

Purpose This study examined psychometric properties of the ten-item Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC-10) among university undergraduate students in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The study followed a cross-sectional design using a sample of 414 students from multiple universities in Southern Vietnam. Three bilingual experts back-translated the provided scale to verify its content. Factor analyses were used to explore and confirm the scale structure, and item response theory (IRT) model for polytomous responses was selected to further examine individual items and the entire scale. Findings Factor analyses confirmed a single-dimensional structure of the CD-RISC-10. IRT analysis demonstrated that individual items and the entire scale reliably measured resilience. However, probabilities to endorse the lowest category were particularly low for most of the items, suggesting a potential to modify the number of the response categories. The overall results indicated that the CD-RISC-10 in Vietnamese was a reliable and accurate tool to measure a range of university students' resilience levels. Research limitations/implications Convenience sampling method, the use of self-reported survey and the inclusion of only university students were limitations of the study. However, using IRT to thoroughly examine the CD-RISC-10 was an important contribution to the work of validating research instruments. Practical implications The CD-RISC-10 could be a valid, reliable and convenient assessment tool for school psychologists and psychiatrists to use in trainings, counseling services or resilience intervention programs. Originality/value While many studies have investigated psychometric properties of the CD-RISC-10 in other languages, none has been conducted in Vietnamese.