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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Validity and reliability of the Polish adaptation of the Health-Related Hardiness Scale – the first confirmatory factor analysis results for a commonly used scale

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BackgroundThe Health-Related Hardiness Scale (HRHS) developed by Pollock is one of the most widely used measures to assess the construct of hardiness in chronic diseases. However, the original structure of the scale has been investigated only with exploratory factor analysis, and there have been no studies investigating the structure of the scale using a confirmatory approach, so significant doubts about the validity of the scale could be raised.Participants and procedureA total of 450 participants took part in the study, with the majority suffering from chronic diseases. A Polish ver-sion of the HRHS, the Sense of Coherence questionnaire (SOC-29), the Resiliency Assessment Scale (SPP-25), the Liverpool Scale of Sense of Self Efficacy (LSES), and the Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS) were used. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to assess factor structure of the HRHS and correlational analyses to inves-tigate criterion validity were conducted. Since the original structure did not fit the data adequately, a modified structure of the short version of the scale was investigated and a good fit to the data was obtained.ResultsThe modified version consisted of two subscales of Control (6 items) and Challenge/Commitment (6 items) which had good Cronbach’s α reliability, .75 and .75 respectively, and .83 for the overall score. The HRHS showed expected correlation patterns with criterion variables. Separate sten norm were provided for female and male patients with chronic illnesses.ConclusionsThe Polish version of the HRHS is a useful and valuable tool for assessing levels of health-related psychologi-cal hardiness. The scale can be used for both clinical and research purposes.