Introduction:
Standard resilience scales often overlook culturally embedded constructs critical to mental health assessments, particularly in non-Western contexts. In Kenya, findings from qualitative research highlight the role of social and spiritual support in shaping resilience, dimensions underrepresented in existing gold standard assessment tools.
Purpose:
This study introduces the Kenya Resiliency Index (KRI), a culturally grounded instrument designed to capture indigenous understandings of psychosocial strength and well-being.
Method:
Using data from 272 healthy participants enrolled into the Brain Resilience Kenya and AD-DETECT Kenya studies, we extracted and recoded items from validated instruments and interview-derived indicators. The KRI comprises six indicators that probe marital/partner support, religiosity/spirituality, loneliness, and satisfaction with social relationships. Internal consistency was assessed with McDonald's omega. Correlational analyses were used to assess associations between the KRI and a measure of resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10), depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7).
Results:
54% of participants were married/partnered and 53% reported low loneliness. Satisfaction with friendships, intimacy, and personal relationships was high in 39-55% and very high in 11-20%. Spiritual engagement was somewhat high in 47% and very high in 22%. Internal consistency was marginal (ω = 0.65). The KRI correlated positively with the CD-RISC-10 (r = 0.225, p < .001). Higher KRI scores were associated with lower depression (PHQ-9; r = -.164, p = .007) and lower anxiety (GAD-7; r = -.404, p < .001), with stronger effect sizes than observed when correlating the CDRS-10 with depression (r=-.077, p=.186) and anxiety (r=-.136. p=.018).
Conclusion:
Capture of relational and spiritual domains of resilience, often overlooked by gold-standard scales, may be more strongly associated with depression and anxiety in the Kenyan context. Although limited by retrospective index construction, the KRI presents a promising direction for prospective scale development. Future studies aim to leverage these results to design a novel resiliency scale that may better reflect constructs essential to African resilience.