ORIGINAL PAPER
Resiliency and social support as factors promoting the process of resilience in adolescents – wards of children’s homes
 
More details
Hide details
 
Submission date: 2014-11-24
 
 
Final revision date: 2014-12-28
 
 
Acceptance date: 2014-12-28
 
 
Online publication date: 2015-02-10
 
 
Publication date: 2015-02-10
 
 
Health Psychology Report 2015;3(3):210-219
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background
The aim of the study was to investigate whether in a group of adolescents – wards of children’s homes – the process of resilience occurs and to determine the role of resiliency (understood as a personality trait) and social support in this process. At least an average level of sense of quality of life was an indicator of resilience.

Participants and procedure
Results of 60 adolescents were analyzed, among them 29 boys and 31 girls, aged 11-17 years (M = 14.80, SD = 2.00). The Subjective Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, the Resiliency Assessment Scale, and the Social Support Questionnaire were used in the study.

Results
Fifty-one and sixty one-hundredths percent of participants revealed at least an average level of sense of quality of life. Higher levels of resiliency and social support were found in subjects with a higher level of sense of quality of life. Resiliency and social support were found to be predictors of sense of quality of life in the examined group of adolescents, but resiliency has greater predictive power. Among resiliency factors, optimistic attitude and energy play the essential role in predicting sense of quality of life, and among the types of social support, information support is most important.

Conclusions
The results indicate that personal resources play a more important role in occurrence of the process of resilience than social resources.
 
REFERENCES (35)
1.
Ahern, N., Kiehl, E., Lou Sole, M., & Byers, J. (2006). A review of instruments measuring resilience. Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 29, 103-125.
 
2.
Alriksson-Schmidt, A., Wallander, J., & Biasini, F. (2007). Quality of life and resilience in adolescents with a mobility disability. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32, 370-379.
 
3.
Beutel, M., Glaesmer, H., Decker, O., Fischbeck, S., & Brahler, E. (2009). Life satisfaction, distress, and resiliency across the life span of women. Menopause, 16, 1132-1138.
 
4.
Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1980). The role of ego-control and ego-resiliency in the origination of behavior. In: W. A. Collings (ed.), The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (pp. 39-101). NJ: Hillsdale, Erlbaum.
 
5.
Borucka, A., & Ostaszewski, K. (2008). Koncepcja resilience. Kluczowe pojęcia i wybrane zagadnienia [The concept of resilience. Key terms and selected issues]. Medycyna Wieku Rozwojowego, 12, 587-597.
 
6.
Buckner, J., MezzaCappa, E., & Beardslee, W. (2003). Characteristics of resilient youths living in poverty: The role of self-regulatory process. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 139-162.
 
7.
Chung, H. (2008). Resiliency and character strengths among college students. www.gradworks.uni.com /33/07/3307360.html (last accessed: 31.08.2010).
 
8.
Clark, D., Pynoos, R., & Goebel, A. (1999). Mechanisms and processes of adolescent bereavement. In: R. Haggerty, L. Sherrod, N. Garmezy, & M. Rutter (eds.), Stress, risk and resilience in children and adolescents (pp. 100-146). United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
 
9.
Ferguson, D. M., & Horwood L. J. (2003). Resilience to childhood adversity. Results of 21 year study. In: S. Luthar (ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversities (pp. 130-155). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 
10.
Garmezy, N. (1991). Resiliency and vulnerability to adverse developmental outcome with poverty. American Behavioral Sciences, 34, 416-430.
 
11.
Grzegorzewska, I. (2013a). Odporność psychiczna dzieci alkoholików [Mental resilience among the children of alcoholics]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
 
12.
Grzegorzewska, I. (2013b). Aktualny stan badań nad zjawiskiem odporności psychicznej w populacji dzieci alkoholików [The current state of research on the phenomenon of mental resilience in the population of children with alcoholic parents]. Polskie Forum Psychologiczne, 18, 385-399.
 
13.
Grzegorzewska, I. (2013c). Individual predispositions and positive adaptation of children of alcoholics. Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 1, 11-25.
 
14.
Heszen, I., & Sęk, H. (2007). Psychologia zdrowia [Psychology of Health]. Warszawa: PWN.
 
15.
Junik, W. (2011). Zjawisko rezyliencji – wybrane problemy metodologiczne [The phenomenon of resilience – selected methodological problems]. In: W. Junik (ed.), Resilience. Teoria. Badania. Praktyka [Resilience. Theory. Research. Practice] (pp. 47-65). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Parpamedia.
 
16.
Kmiecik-Baran, K. (2000). Narzędzia do rozpoznawania zagrożeń społecznych w szkole [Tools for recognising social risks in a school environment]. In: Młodzież i przemoc (tom 4) [Youth and violence] (vol. 4). Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Przegląd Oświatowy.
 
17.
Luthar, S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543-562.
 
18.
Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, D. (1995). Competence, resilience and psychopathology. In: D. Cicchetti, D. J. Cohen (eds.), Developmental Psychology: Risk, disorder and adaptation (vol. 2, pp. 715-752). New York: Wiley.
 
19.
Masten, A. S., & Obradovic, J. (2008). Disaster preparation and recovery: Lessons from research on resilience in human development. Ecology and Society, 13, 9.
 
20.
Nadolska, K., & Sęk, H. (2007). Społeczny kontekst odkrywania wiedzy o zasobach odpornościowych, czyli czym jest resilience i jak ono funkcjonuje [The social context of gathering the knowledge about immunity resources – what is resilience and how does it work]. In: Ł. Kaczmarek, & A. Słysz (eds.), Bliżej serca – zdrowie i emocje [Closer to the heart – health and emotions] (pp. 13-37). Poznań: Wydawnictwo UAM.
 
22.
Ogińska-Bulik, N. (2010). Prężność a jakość życia młodzieży [Resilience and the quality of life of adolescents]. Psychologia Jakości Życia, 1, 233-247.
 
23.
Ogińska-Bulik, N. (2014). Prężność a zadowolenie z życia osób uzależnionych od alkoholu [Resilience and satisfaction with life of alcohol-dependednt individuals]. Alkoholizm i Narkomania, 27, 319-324.
 
24.
Ogińska-Bulik, N., & Juczyński, Z. (2010). Osobowość, stres a zdrowie [Personality, stress and health] (2nd ed.). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Difin.
 
25.
Ogińska-Bulik, N., & Juczyński, Z. (2008). Skala pomiaru prężności – SPP-25 [Resilience measuring scale – SPP-25]. Nowiny Psychologiczne, 3, 39-56.
 
26.
Ogińska-Bulik N., & Juczyński, Z. (2011). Prężność u dzieci i młodzieży: charakterystyka i pomiar – polska skala SPP-18 [Resilience among children and adolescents: characteristics and measurement – Polish scale SPP-18]. Polskie Forum Psychologiczne, 16, 7-28.
 
27.
Oleś, M. (2010). Jakość życia młodzieży w zdrowiu i chorobie [Quality of Life in Health and Illness]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL.
 
28.
Ostaszewski, K. (2005). Druga strona ryzyka [The other side of risk]. Remedium, 2, 1-3.
 
29.
Ostrowski, T. M. (2013). Resilience in the light of research and theoretical reflection. In: T. M. Ostrowski, & I. Sikorska (eds.). Health and resilience (pp. 13-23). Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ.
 
30.
Rossi, N., Bisconti, T., & Bergeman, C. S. (2007). The role of dispositional resilience in regaining life satisfaction after the loss of spouse. Death Studies, 31, 863-883.
 
31.
Uchnast, Z. (1997). Prężność osobowa; empiryczna typologia i metoda pomiaru [Personal resilience; empirical typology and a method of measurement]. Roczniki Filozoficzne, 4, 27-49.
 
32.
Uchnast, Z. (1998). Prężność osobowa a egzystencjalne wymiary wartościowania [Mental resilience and existential dimensions of valuation]. Roczniki Psychologiczne, 1, 7-27.
 
33.
White, B., Driver, S., & Warren, P. M. (2010). Resilience and indicators of adjustment during rehabilitation from a spinal cord injury. Rehabilitation Psychology, 55, 23-32.
 
34.
Winfield, L. F. (1994). Developing Resilience in Urban Youth. NCREL: University of Southern California.
 
35.
Yates, T., Egeland, B., & Sroufe, A. (2003). Rethinking resilience. A developmental process perspective. In: S. Luthar (ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversities (pp. 243-259). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
eISSN:2353-5571
ISSN:2353-4184
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top