Developing a psychological resilience scale for health practitioners and students in Taiwan

There is currently no psychological resilience scale specifically designed for health practitioners and students in Taiwanese health settings. To address the need for a culturally relevant scale to assess and track psychological resilience in these groups, we conducted a comprehensive study. After a literature review and panel discussions, a pilot study was carried out with 738 health students and health practitioners with health-related training or competence in central Taiwan who completed a survey. To examine the psychometric properties of the Psychological Resilience Scale for Health Practitioners and Students (PRS-HPS), data from 430 participants were used to perform exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and data from 308 participants were used to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA identified the same four factors as the EFA, but with a total of 32 items: positive expectations (nine items), meaningfulness (eight items), self-reliance (nine items), and composure (six items). The total explained variance in this 32-item CFA model increased to 75.022% despite the removal of one item. The validity and goodness-of-fit indices for the EFA- and CFA-derived PRS-HPS were satisfactory. The findings validated the PRS-HPS as an effective tool for evaluating the psychological resilience of health practitioners and students in Taiwan.