Brief Resilience Scale – resilience self-check

Six statements on the ability to bounce back from stress. Three items are reverse-scored; the result is a mean from 1.00 to 5.00.

The live demo opens the real questionnaire — no signup required.

Brief Resilience Scale – resilience self-check – questionnaire preview

The Brief Resilience Scale by Smith and colleagues measures resilience in its original sense: the ability to bounce back from stress – not optimism, toughness or endurance. Six statements are answered on a five-point agreement scale, three of them reverse-worded. The mean of all six items gives a value between 1.00 and 5.00; below 3.00 counts as low and above 4.30 as high. Those reverse items make the scale a good example of careful scoring: without correct reversal the results are systematically wrong.

When should you use this template?

This template is a great fit for:

  • As a self-check in health and leadership programmes
  • To prepare for a coaching or counselling conversation
  • As a repeated measure before and after a demanding period

Every question in this template

  1. 1

    I understand that participation is voluntary and anonymous, and I take part. *

    Consent
  2. 2

    How much do you agree with the following statements? *

    Please answer spontaneously – there are no right or wrong answers.

    Matrix
    Strongly disagreeDisagreeNeutralAgreeStrongly agree
    I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times.
    I have a hard time making it through stressful events.
    It does not take me long to recover from a stressful event.
    It is hard for me to snap back when something bad happens.
    I usually come through difficult times with little trouble.

Related survey templates

Browse all survey templates →

Frequently asked questions

Why are three items reverse-worded?
The scale deliberately alternates positively and negatively worded statements so that respondents cannot simply agree throughout. When scoring, items 2, 4 and 6 are reversed – in this template the scoring engine does that automatically.
How is the score calculated?
After reversing the three negatively worded items, the mean of all six answers is calculated. The result lies between 1.00 and 5.00 and is classified as low (below 3.00), normal (3.00 to 4.30) and high resilience (above 4.30).

Start with this template

Load the template into DataLion, adapt it to your brand and start collecting responses — GDPR-compliant, in minutes.