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Brief Resilience Scale

BRS
psychologyhealth sciencesFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no licence fee. Cite the original publication.

A 6-item unidimensional scale measuring resilience in its original sense: the ability to bounce back or recover from stress.

Items
6
Response format
5-point Likert
Version
1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Resilience was measured with the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS; Smith et al., 2008), a 6-item measure with good internal consistency (α = .80 to .91 across the four original samples).

Citing this in a methods section? This scale spans more than one discipline, so the style depends on where you publish. See the APA 7 or Vancouver guides, or compare all six citation styles.

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Reliability & validation

Validation population
Two undergraduate samples, cardiac patients, and women with and without fibromyalgia (Smith et al., 2008)
Test–retest
0.69
Cronbach's α
0.8–0.91

Response anchors

Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neutral · Agree · Strongly agree

Known limitations

Measures recovery from stress rather than protective resources, so it is not interchangeable with resource-based resilience scales (e.g., the CD-RISC). Half the items are reverse-worded, which can introduce method effects.

Original citation

Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194-200.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972

Questions researchers ask

What does the BRS measure?

A 6-item unidimensional scale measuring resilience in its original sense: the ability to bounce back or recover from stress.

How many items does the BRS have?

The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) has 6 items.

Is the BRS free to use?

The BRS is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the BRS reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.8–0.91, test–retest reliability of 0.69. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the BRS, and how do I cite it?

Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972

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Related scales

CD-RISC-10Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10FFMQFive Facet Mindfulness QuestionnaireAUDITAlcohol Use Disorders Identification TestBAIBeck Anxiety InventoryBDI-IIBeck Depression Inventory-IIBrief-COPEBrief-COPE

Library entry verified September 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.