Maternal Resilience Scale (ERESMA)

Description

The Maternal Resilience Scale (ERESMA) is an assessment instrument designed to evaluate psychosocial resilience in mothers or primary caregivers of children experiencing developmental, educational, behavioral, or other difficulties. The scale focuses on how mothers or caregivers respond to the demands of everyday care, educational and health-related challenges, and the personal, family, and social resources available to them.

The instrument consists of 45 items, including both positively and negatively worded statements. Specifically, it contains 14 positive and 31 negative items, with the negative items requiring reverse scoring.

Purpose

The main purpose of the ERESMA is to assess the extent to which a mother or caregiver is able to maintain adaptive coping strategies when facing difficulties associated with caring for and supporting a child with increased needs.

The scale examines several aspects of resilience, including personal determination and persistence, feelings of hopelessness, spiritual or religious faith, personal responsibility, partner support, and the availability of financial and practical resources.

Scale Structure

The ERESMA is organized into six dimensions:

Self-determination / Resilience: evaluates persistence, active problem solving, personal initiative, and the belief that the caregiver’s actions can positively contribute to the child’s development.

Hopelessness: assesses feelings of discouragement, helplessness, tension, and difficulty coping with the demands associated with the child’s care and education.

Spiritual Faith: evaluates the role of faith, prayer, and spirituality as sources of strength, guidance, and emotional relief.

Rejection of Personal Responsibility: refers to the tendency to attribute difficulties to external circumstances or other people rather than assuming personal responsibility.

Lack of Support from the Partner: assesses difficulties in communication, collaboration, decision-making, and emotional or practical support from the partner.

Limited Resources for Meeting Needs: evaluates the extent to which financial, social, or practical limitations interfere with access to healthcare, education, and other services required by the child and family.

Response Scale

Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale:

1 = Never
2 = Almost never
3 = Sometimes
4 = Frequently
5 = Always

Negatively worded items are reverse-scored so that the final scores follow a consistent interpretative direction.

Scoring and Statistical Analysis

The total score is calculated by summing the item scores after the appropriate reverse coding of negatively worded items. Separate scores may also be calculated for each of the six dimensions.

According to the source material, higher scores indicate greater maternal resilience.

The items are distributed across the six dimensions as follows:

  • Self-determination: 11, 24, 1, 44, 17, 30, 42, 33, 14
  • Hopelessness: 2, 8, 23, 12, 28, 20, 36, 43, 40, 45, 15, 32, 4
  • Spiritual faith: 5, 22, 26, 35, 29
  • Rejection of personal responsibility: 3, 19, 27, 38, 9
  • Lack of support from the partner: 10, 21, 6, 39, 16, 34, 41
  • Limited resources for meeting needs: 18, 25, 31, 7, 37, 13.

If the mother or caregiver does not have a partner, the instrument can be calculated using 38 items, excluding the “Lack of Support from the Partner” dimension.

Validity and Reliability

The source material reports high internal consistency for the overall scale and satisfactory to high reliability coefficients for its individual dimensions.

The reported reliability coefficient for the total scale is 0.92. The coefficients for the six dimensions are:

  • Self-determination / Resilience: 0.84
  • Hopelessness: 0.89
  • Spiritual faith: 0.78
  • Rejection of personal responsibility: 0.71
  • Lack of support from the partner: 0.84
  • Limited resources for meeting needs: 0.80.

These values indicate satisfactory to very high internal consistency for the overall scale and most of its subdimensions.

Applications

The ERESMA may be used in research and applied settings involving families of children with special educational, developmental, behavioral, or health-related needs. It can support the investigation of factors associated with caregiver adjustment, coping, family support, perceived resources, and everyday caregiving demands.

Its multidimensional structure also makes it possible to identify specific areas in which caregivers may experience greater difficulties or, alternatively, demonstrate stronger protective and resilience-related resources.

References

Roque MP, Acle G, García M. Escala de resiliencia materna: un estudio de validación en una muestra de madres con niños especiales [Maternal resilience scale: A validation study in a sample of mothers with exceptional children]. Revista Iberoamericana de Diagnóstico y Evaluación Psicológica. 2009;1(27):107–132.

Roque HMP. Evaluación de las características de resiliencia materna y mediadores ante la excepcionalidad. In: Acle G, ed. Resiliencia en educación especial. Una experiencia en la escuela regular. Barcelona: Gedisa; 2012:105–135.