Psychometric properties of the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) in Chinese undergraduates and depressive patients

Backgrouds: The 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) is a widely self-report questionnaire to assess resilience in different populations, including adolescents, elderly individuals and psychiatric patients. Considering the application of the CD-RISC-10 in depression patients, the present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties, especially the measurement invariance, of the CD-RISC-10 in depressive patient sample. Methods: A total of 2230 undergraduates from Hunan Province and 293 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) from psychological clinics participated in our study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to evaluate the single-factor model of the CD-RISC-10 and the measurement equivalence of the CD-RISC-10 across the clinical (MDD) and non-clinical (undergraduate) samples, as well as gender invariance in the non-clinical sample. Results: The findings implied that the CD-RISC-10 showed good reliability and validity, including favorable internal consistency and criterion-related validity. The CFA results showed that the strong model fit for a uni-dimensional structure of the CD-RISC-10 was supported in the clinical (eg., CFI >0.910, TLI >0.900, RMSEA < 0.080) and non-clinical (eg., CFI >0.950, TLI >0.940, RMSEA < 0.060) groups, respectively. Moreover, the scalar invariance of the CD-RISC-10 was supported across the clinical and non-clinical samples (eg., Delta CFI < 0.009, Delta TLI < 0.005, Delta RMSEA < 0.003). Similarly, the strict gender invariance was also established in the male (n= 1035) and female (n= 1195) undergraduate samples (eg., Delta CFI < 0.008, Delta TLI < 0.004, Delta RMSEA < 0.002). Limitations: The inclusion of Chinese individuals only and the absence of depressive patients with comorbidities were our major limitations. Conclusions: Overall, these psychometric findings not only supported the stability and validity of the CD-RISC-10 for application with different samples in resilience study, but also indicated that the CD-RISC-10 could be an effective instrument for research in depression.