The Scale of Protective Factors (SPF-24) was developed to do something essential: identify the social and cognitive strengths that help people recover from trauma. With subscales for social support, planning, and goal efficacy, it offered a more structured way to understand what buffers people after violence or adversity. For clinicians and trauma researchers, that made it a valuable tool.
But resilience doesn’t stop at recovery. And for coaches, trainers, and development professionals, the question isn’t just “What got you through?”, it’s “What will help you grow from here?”
The Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) builds on this foundation with a wider lens. Rooted in a neurobiological model, the PRI doesn’t just identify resilience, it maps where it lives, where it’s under pressure, and where growth is possible. It does this across key areas like and twelve drivers that can be developed over time.The PRI isn’t just about identifying existing strengths. It’s designed to reveal what’s missing, what’s under strain, and where meaningful development can begin, well beyond the trauma lens.
In this post, we’ll explore the origins of the SPF-24, what made it useful in trauma recovery, and how resilience science has evolved since its release. We’ll then take a close look at how the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) compares, not just in structure, but in what it makes possible. From theory to application, we’ll show why PRI is better suited for coaching, leadership, and professional growth work today.
Table Of Contents:
- The Origins of the Scale of Protective Factors (SPF): Why It Was Built and What It Measures
- How Resilience Research Has Evolved Since the SPF: From Traits to Trainable Systems
- How the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) Supports Coaches, Leaders, and Learning Professionals
- What the Numbers Really Tell You: PRI vs SPF-24
- Paul’s Story: The Strengths That Got You Here Might Not Get You Through
- The Bottom Line
- Want to Use the PRI With Your Clients?
- FAQ
- References
The Origins of the Scale of Protective Factors (SPF): Why It Was Built and What It Measures
The Scale of Protective Factors (SPF-24) was developed to fill a noticeable gap: most resilience measures offered just one blunt score, telling you whether someone was “resilient” or not, without showing why. Published in 2015 by Ponce-Garcia, Madewell, and Kennison, the SPF was built to break that binary by mapping out the actual strengths that help people recover from trauma.
It took a more structured approach than earlier scales. The SPF-24 includes 24 items scored on a 7-point scale, ranging from “disagree completely” to “agree completely.” Responses are grouped into four protective factor subscales:
- Social Support
- Social Skills
- Goal Efficacy (sometimes labelled Self-Efficacy)
- Planning and Prioritising Behaviour
These are then summarised under two broader categories: Social-Interpersonal and Cognitive-Individual protective factors. In simpler terms: how you relate to others and how you manage yourself.
The SPF offered more than just a total score. It allowed researchers and clinicians to pinpoint strengths and deficits in specific areas, particularly valuable in clinical work with people recovering from violent trauma. For example, researchers consistently found that people with lower overall resilience (on other measures like the CD-RISC) also scored lower across all SPF subscales, especially on Planning and Prioritising. That level of detail gave practitioners a clearer sense of where to focus support.
More importantly, the SPF reframed resilience as something you could unpack, not just a fixed trait, but a set of protective strengths that could be seen, scored, and discussed. In trauma recovery, that shift was huge.
But resilience isn’t only about how we bounce back. It’s about how we adapt, respond, and grow in the present. And that’s where newer tools, like the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI), begin to show a different kind of value.
How Resilience Research Has Evolved Since the SPF: From Traits to Trainable Systems
When the SPF-24 was published in 2015, it reflected the best thinking of the time: that resilience could be understood by identifying stable protective factors (like self-efficacy, planning skills, and supportive relationships). And for many years, that was the dominant view. Resilience was seen as a relatively fixed trait, something built over time, rooted in past experiences, and measured in terms of psychological stability.
But since then, the science has shifted. The big insight?
Resilience isn’t just a trait. It’s also a process.
One of the clearest wake-up calls came in 2024, when two researchers (Chernobrovkina and Medvedev) put several popular resilience tools under the microscope. They wanted to know: Can these scales actually detect when someone’s resilience is shifting in real time, not just over years, but week to week?
To answer that, they used a method designed to tease apart what’s stable in us (like long-term personality traits) from what’s dynamic and responsive (like how, under pressure, we feel this month). Think of it like testing whether your thermometer can read not just your average body temperature, but also whether you’ve spiked a fever today.
The result? Most tools, including the SPF (and also the CD-RISC and the RS) did well when it came to measuring long-term resilience strengths. But they missed the mark on short-term sensitivity. They could tell you how strong the boat was when it left the harbour, not how it’s handling the waves right now.
That’s a problem for anyone supporting people through active challenge or change. If your client is drifting, edging toward burnout, or bracing under pressure, you need more than a historical profile. You need to know how their systems are holding up – now, not six months ago.
At the same time, another shift was underway: resilience research was moving beyond psychology into biology and neuroscience. Researchers like Michael Meaney, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Richard Davidson were showing that resilience doesn’t just live in mindset, it lives in the body. From sleep disruption to inflammation to emotional regulation, the systems that support resilience are biological as much as behavioural.
This shift didn’t invalidate earlier tools like the SPF. But it did reveal their limits, especially for practitioners working outside a clinical trauma setting.
That shift in understanding called for tools built with change in mind, and that’s where where the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) comes in.
Built after the SPF, the PRI was designed to reflect this new science of resilience, not just as something fixed, but as a set of dynamic systems that can be strengthened over time. Its twelve drivers span six domains (Health, Purpose, Problem-Solving, Perseverance, Composure, and Relationship). Each driver is trainable. Each one offers a way back when someone’s starting to unravel.
And because it’s grounded in neurobiology, the PRI doesn’t just show where a person has capacity. It helps pinpoint where they’re running low and where to start rebuilding.
How the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) Supports Coaches, Leaders, and Learning Professionals
The PRI wasn’t just built to reflect new science. It was built to change how that science gets used in practice.
For coaches, psychologists, team leads, and L&D professionals, the question is often not “Is this person resilient?” but “Where are they resilient, and where are they at risk?” That’s what the PRI was designed to answer.
Its structure of twelve drivers across six domains means it can highlight overloaded systems, strained recovery patterns, or strengths that are quietly holding things together. And because those drivers are tied to specific behaviours and strategies, the conversation quickly moves from insight to action.
For example, a senior leader might show strong scores in Purpose and Creative Insight, but depleted scores in Healthand Emotional Agility. That pattern tells a story. Not just about how they’re wired but about what they’ve been carrying. And it gives the coach a concrete place to start: one that respects the client’s lived reality while pointing toward workable and sustainable change.
For example, the PRI is being used in leadership development to support emotionally intelligent leadership, resilience mentoring, and burnout prevention. In team settings, it can uncover resilience blind spots that traditional 360s miss. For psychologists and wellbeing consultants, it offers a multidimensional framework for identifying where support will actually make a difference.
What makes the PRI practical isn’t just the data it gives you.
It’s the way it turns resilience from a concept into a conversation, and from a score into a strategy.
What the Numbers Really Tell You: PRI vs SPF-24
A high score can look reassuring. But numbers don’t always tell you what’s breaking.
That’s why when you’re choosing a resilience tool, the question isn’t just “Is it reliable?” but “Is it relevant NOW?”Whether you’re coaching an executive on the edge of burnout, debriefing a client in crisis, or designing a development programme that actually works, the metrics behind the tool need to stand up. And they need to give you more than a number.
Statistically, both the SPF-24 and the PRI are strong. They’ve been rigorously tested, and both show excellent internal consistency, i.e. one of the most basic markers of a good scale. If you’ve ever sat at a piano that’s slightly out of tune, you know the feeling. Some notes sound fine, others jar. That’s what poor internal consistency feels like in a resilience tool: questions that don’t quite belong to the same system. When internal consistency is high, everything resonates.
The SPF-24 is tight. Its Cronbach’s alpha is 0.94 overall, with subscales ranging from 0.83 to 0.93. That means the questions about planning, goal efficacy, and social support are pulling in the same direction. The PRI holds the same line with 0.94 overall, with individual domains Relationships showing strong reliability across the board. So whatever differences exist between the tools, they’re not about build quality. Both are sound.
But that’s just the frame. The more important question is: what kind of picture are we getting?
The SPF-24 was developed to identify the protective factors that buffer people after trauma. Social support. Planning skills. Confidence in reaching goals. It’s a tightly defined scale, and it does its job well. Scores on the SPF correlate in expected ways with established resilience tools, and show meaningful patterns with anxiety and depression. When someone’s long-term coping resources are solid, the SPF picks up on that.
The PRI takes a wider-angle view. Instead of four subscales, it maps twelve protective drivers across six domains, covering everything from purpose to physical health. It was tested in a working adult population, and validated using constructs like Sense of Coherence and Positive Affect. And because both SOC and PANAS are also positively linked to the CD-RISC, we can be confident the PRI is picking up resilience-related strengths, just through a broader and more applied lens.
Still, the real difference lies in timing.
The SPF is a trait measure. That’s not a guess, it was tested using Generalizability Theory, a method designed to separate what’s stable from what’s shifting. The results were clear: the SPF captures long-term patterns, but it’s not sensitive to change. If someone is struggling in the present — physically exhausted, emotionally flatlined, losing sleep — the SPF might not pick it up.
That’s where the PRI shifts the focus. It wasn’t built to capture general strengths from five years ago. It was designed to map what’s holding up under pressure — and what isn’t. It focuses on malleable traits: stable enough to measure, but responsive enough to develop. When a client is stretched thin or sliding into burnout, the PRI doesn’t just flag that something’s off. It shows you where to start.
That’s the difference a good metric makes.Because when the pressure’s on, you don’t just need a perfect tune —You need to know which string is about to snap.
So how do these tools stack up when it comes to structure, science, and what they actually make possible? Here’s a side-by-side look at the PRI and the SPF-24 across the metrics that matter.
| Category | Scale of Protective Factors (SPF-24) | Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) |
| Basic Information | ||
| Year of Publication | 2015 | 2021 |
| Validation Population | US college students (ages 18–25); trauma-exposed subsample | Working professionals |
| Availability | Available for academic use | Licensed (pay-per-use) Certification training |
| Structure and Properties | ||
| Time Frame for Responses | None specified | 4 weeks |
| Phrasing of Items | Positively framed, general behaviour statements | Both |
| Response Scale | 7-point Likert (1 = disagree completely to 7 = agree completely) | 5-point Likert (1 = not at all like me to 5 = very much like me) |
| Number of Items | 24 | 64 |
| Number of Domains | 2 | 6 |
| Number of Subdomains | 4 | 12 |
| Internal Consistency | α = 0.94 | α = 0.94 |
| Output | ||
| Scoring | Overall score and four subscale scores | Overall, domain and driver scores |
| Normalisation | No | Yes (stable population sample) |
| Graphical Output | None | Stacked sunburst chart and summary scales |
| Client Report | None | Detailed report with domain and driver-level insights |
Paul’s Story: The Strengths That Got You Here Might Not Get You Through
PRI vs. SPF-24: The Problem with Looking in the Rear-view Mirror
Paul reflects:
Eighty-five. That was my score on the SPF-24. High.
I looked at that number and thought, Yeah… sounds about right. For 2023.
That year, I was firing on all cylinders. I’d just finished a three-year training with Gabor Maté and passed certification on the first go. Something Sat Dharam told me was almost unheard of. My practice was thriving. I was about to start a 15-month training to integrate psychedelics into my client work. And I’d just qualified on my rebreather, finally chasing the dream of diving the deep wrecks off Malta, 80 metres and beyond.
I felt strong. Capable. Rooted in something meaningful.
But when I took the SPF, it wasn’t 2023 anymore. It was January 2025, and I was wrecked.
No sleep. No diagnosis. Pain radiated through everything. I was cancelling clients, and I was barely present with the ones I saw. The spark was gone. I wasn’t bouncing—I was just bracing.
So when the SPF came back saying, “You’re protected,” it felt like someone was grading last year’s exam.
Paul’s current level of resilience as assessed by the Scale of Protective Factors (SPF) and the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) side-by-side (Note: no visualisation is provided by the SPF, domain scoring was not available)
That’s what makes the PRI so different.
It doesn’t just ask who you’ve been or what strengths you’ve built. It asks how those strengths are holding up. Right now. When Paul took it, his overall score came back 13%. Health: 1%. Emotional Agility: 2%. Sleep: 4%.
Not because he wasn’t resilient. However, because the systems that support resilience were under strain, the PRI showed that.
At the same time, it highlighted what was still working. Creative Insight: 79%. Intuition: 93%. Connection: 69%.Those weren’t feel-good platitudes, they were entry points. We could build from the anchors while rebuilding the rest.
The SPF confirmed who Paul had been when he was thriving.The PRI helped him find his footing in a moment he thought he’d lost it.
Because resilience isn’t just about what got you here. It’s about what gets you through.
The Bottom Line
• The SPF reflects past strength. The PRI reveals present strain.• The SPF shows what’s built. The PRI shows what can be rebuilt.• The SPF is about survival. The PRI is about growth.
Want to Use the PRI With Your Clients?
If you’re a coach, trainer, or development professional ready to move beyond snapshots and into the trainable systems that shape real resilience, book a free 20-minute strategy session with Paul or Nadine.
If you’re ready to make resilience not just measurable, but meaningful, we’d love to chat.
FAQ
What makes the PRI more suitable for coaching or personal development?
Most resilience tools were designed to evaluate or describe. The PRI was designed to guide. Instead of a single score or a static label, it breaks resilience down into six domains and twelve trainable drivers, mapped against the systems that shape how we adapt, recover, and grow. That structure matters. It gives coaches and trainers a starting point for targeted conversations, practical strategies, and real-world traction. You don’t just see where someone is strong or struggling. You see what’s ready to shift.
How often should I re-administer the PRI to track change over time?
We recommend a reassessment every 2–4 months for coaching or training programmes with weekly or fortnightly sessions. For longer-term programmes with less intensive contact, every 6–8 months is usually ideal. The PRI is sensitive enough to pick up meaningful change across that timeframe, especially when development efforts are focused and supported.
Does the PRI measure state or trait resilience?
The PRI primarily measures malleable traits that are stable enough to track over time, but responsive to development. It’s not about capturing someone’s mood on a bad day. It’s about the deeper systems that support resilience such as Emotional Agility, Sleep, Motivation, Confidence, Adaptability, and more. These are the levers that shift as people train, reflect, or rebuild. The PRI is designed to help coaches and professionals spot which systems are holding strong, which are under strain, and where development is most likely to pay off.
Is training required to use the PRI with clients?
Yes, and that’s intentional. The PRI is a professional-grade tool designed for use by certified coaches, trainers, and psychologists. That’s not about red tape, it’s about making sure the data becomes useful. Certification gives you a working knowledge of the PRI’s neuropsychobiological model, the confidence to interpret domain-level scores, and the practical skills to guide a client conversation that is insightful and actionable for you and your clients..
Curious whether certification is the right next step? Book a free call to talk it through or explore more about the PRI Certification Training here.
References
Chernobrovkina, L., & Medvedev, O. N. (2023). Investigating state and trait aspects of resilience using Generalizability theory. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05072-4
Madewell, A. N., Ponce-Garcia, E., & Martin, S. E. (2016). Data replicating the factor structure and reliability of commonly used measures of resilience: The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, Resilience Scale, and Scale of Protective Factors. Data in Brief, 8, 1387–1390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2016.08.001
Ponce Garcia, E., Madewell, A. N., & Brown, M. E. (2016). Resilience in men and women experiencing sexual assault or traumatic stress: Validation and replication of the scale of protective factors. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 29(6), 537–545. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22148
Ponce-Garcia, E., Madewell, A. N., & Kennison, S. M. (2015). The development of the Scale of Protective Factors: Resilience in a violent trauma sample. Violence and Victims, 30(5), 735–755. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-14-00163
Salisu, I., & Hashim, N. (2017). A critical review of scales used in resilience research. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 19(4), 23–33. https://doi.org/10.9790/487X-1904032333
Sinclair, N., Hafner, G., & Sinclair, P. D. (in submission). Development and validation of the Personal Resilience Indicator (PRI) scale for personal development and organizational application. Mind Matters Ltd.
