Validation of a Measure of Family Resilience Among Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

Although interactions within veterans’ families may support or inhibit resilient coping to stress and trauma across the deployment cycle, research on family resilience has been hampered by the lack of a brief assessment. Using a three-stage mixed method study, we developed and conducted preliminary validation of a measure of family resilience tailored for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (IAVs), the Family Resilience Scale for Veterans (FRS-V), which was field-tested using a survey of 151 IAVs. Our findings indicate the resulting six-item measure shows strong initial reliability and validity and supports the application of existing models of family resilience in this population.