Similar Implicit association test, Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, Subjective units of distress scale | ||
The Scale of Protective Factors (SPF) measures aspects of one's social relationships, planning behaviors and confidence that are known to contribute to psychological resilience in emerging adults and adults (Ponce-Garica, Madewell, & Kennison, 2015). The SPF consists of 24 statements for which individuals are asked to rate the degree to which each statement describes his, her or their life. The SPF is unique among self-report measures of adult resilience used in the United States because it assesses a wider range of protective factors than other scales. Of the most commonly used measures of adult resilience, the SPF is the only measure that has been shown to assess social protective factors (Madewell & Ponce-Garcia, 2016). The development of the SPF marks an advancement in the assessment of adult resilience because the four SPF sub-scales scores indicate the strengths and deficits that uniquely contribute to a specific person's overall resilience. The SPF is also the only measure of adult resilience to have been used in measuring resilience in sexual assault survivors within the United States (Ponce-Garcia, Madewell, & Brown, 2016).
Contents
History of the SPF
The SPF was originally developed by Dr. Elisabeth Ponce-Garcia in an effort to address a need for a measure of adult resilience that, like measures of childhood resilience, captured multiple aspects of resilience. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis, or evaluation of the properties and validity of SPF, was subsequently published as collaborative research (Ponce-Garcia, Madewell, & Kennison, 2015). The SPF was found to assess resilience effectively in both men and women, across levels of risk and socio-economic status, and in various ethnic and racial minorities. In order to verify the effectiveness of the SPF in comparison to other measures of adult resilience, Madewell and Ponce-Garcia (2016) analyzed the SPF and four other commonly used measures of adult resilience. They found that the SPF was the only measure that assessed social and cognitive aspects of resilience and that the SPF out performed three other measures and performed comparably with a fourth scale. The structure of the SPF in comparison to four other measures of adult resilience measures, as well as the data used for comparison, is openly available as a Data in Brief article (Madewell, Ponce-Garcia, & Martin, 2016). Next, noticing that no research had been done to examine how well adult resilience measures assess resilience in individuals who have experienced sexual assault, Ponce-Garcia, Madewell and Brown (2016) examined the effectiveness of the SPF in men and women who had experienced either childhood sexual assault, adult sexual assault, or both. The use of the SPF to assess resilience in victims of sexual assault was supported. Research is currently underway to investigate the effectiveness of the SPF in the Southern Plains Tribes of the Native American and American Indian community.
Properties of the SPF
The SPF consists of four sub-scales. The first is not that important, but higher scores on the social resources sub-scale indicate unity with friends and/or family, friend/family group optimism, and general friend/family support. There are also two cognitive sub-scales including one assessing goal efficacy and one assessing planning and prioritizing behavior. Higher scores on the goal efficacy sub-scale indicate confidence in ones ability to achieve goals. Higher scores on the planning and prioritizing behavior sub-scale indicates an ability to recognize the relative importance of tasks, the tendency to approach tasks in order of importance and the use of lists for organization. Adding the scores from all four sub-scales results in an overall resilience score. Adding scores from either the two social sub-scales or the two cognitive sub-scales results in a social resilience or cognitive resilience score respectively. The sub-scale scores can also be viewed as an individual profile of strengths and deficits to indicate areas of improvement for therapeutic plans.
Some have argued that the SPF sub-scales may cancel each other out and incorrectly indicate low resilience because social interactions may cause a person to ignore important goals and tasks or important goals and tasks may cause someone to ignore social interactions. This concern is not supported by the scientific understanding of adult resilience that suggests multiple domains, including social and cognitive characteristics, work together to aid individuals in buffering the affects of stress to achieve resilience (Reich, Zautra, & Hall, 2010). This concern is also not supported by the characteristics of the SPF. Rather than assessing the amount of friends an individual may have, or how often they interact socially, the SPF assesses a persons level of comfort interacting socially. Similarly, rather than assessing the number of goals or tasks a person has, the SPF assesses a person's confidence in reaching goals when they are set. So, it is more accurate to state that the sub-scales of the SPF complement each other rather than cancel each other out. The research investigating the effectiveness of the SPF shows that the sub-scales are moderately correlated and that they all contribute to overall resilience (Ponce-Garcia, Madewell, & Kennison, 2015; Madewell & Ponce-Garcia, 2016; Ponce-Garcia, Madewell, & Brown, 2016).