A - 20 Comparison of the Grit Scale and Brief Resilience Scale in Adolescents With Concussion

Resilience has been identified as a factor in adolescent concussion recovery. The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) has been validated as a measure of resilience within this population. Less is known regarding the Grit Scale, a separate measure of long-term perseverance that reportedly incorporates resilience. Comparison of the Grit Scale to the BRS, and relationships with measures of emotional symptoms, may prove beneficial to further understand adolescents’ emotional response to concussions.

Participants (N = 88, 47.73% female) aged 12–17 (m = 14.63) were evaluated within one month of concussion (±3 days) at a North Texas Concussion Registry (ConTex) clinic. Participants completed the Grit Scale, Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7), and Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) at initial visit. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) was used to determine the relationship between scores on these measures, and results were compared descriptively between the Grit Scale and the BRS.

Pearson correlations between the Grit Scale and BRS were significant (r = 0.288, p = 0.007). Correlations between the Grit Scale and the GAD-7 and PHQ-8 were modest but significant (r = −0.266, p = 0.013; r = −0.286, p = 0.008), as were correlations between the BRS and these measures (r = −0.297, p = 0.005; r = −0.270, p = 0.012).

Results indicated that both resilience measures had modest inverse relationships with negative emotional symptoms. However, comparison of the two measures demonstrated a difference in their ability to measure the same construct. These findings highlight the potential value of measuring resilience to understand the emotional response to concussion, additionally emphasizing the need for future studies to further investigate the utility of available measures.