Resilience Assessment in Times of Covid-19 in Ecuador

Since the 2019 outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ecuador was challenged by a combination of high health risk and serious economic and social impact. A need emerged to evaluate the resilience of the population in a social situation at the level of health and public safety unprecedented since the term resilience appeared in the scientific literature. The aim of this study is to create an instrument to assess resilience during the period when traumatic events are occurring due to the pandemic. Furthermore, it will consider the fact that the researchers conducting this study are themselves immersed in the same traumatic events provoked by Covid-19. For the development of the instrument, Ungar's Ecological Model has been taken as a reference, which encompasses several theories from the behavioural, cognitive, systemic, and functionalist currents. The instrument consists of 29 items that provide information on 4 dimensions associated with resilience: (1). interpersonal resources, (2). formal support networks, (3). informal support networks and 4. facing the risk situation. The instrument was validated by the “Judges Method” using the Aiken coefficient, in which 10 professionals from various universities in Ecuador participated. As for the reliability of the instrument, internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha.