The relationship between family resilience and family crisis: An empirical study of Chinese families using family adjustment and adaptation response model with the family strength index

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships between different types of family resilience and various specific forms of family crisis. In recent decades, numerous studies have examined how people manage crisis and how resilience is developed to overcome periods of chaos and disruption. Most of these studies look only at individual cases, or focus on general concepts, theories, or fundamental frameworks addressing the basic interaction between resilience and crisis. This study uses the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response model (Paterson, 1988) and the Family Strength Index (Orthner et al., 2003) to measure how family resilience relates to different kinds of family crisis. The results show that of the 6 types of family strength which comprise general family resilience, only economic, problem-solving, and family cohesion strength significantly predicted participants’ level of confidence in managing family crisis. Such a discrepancy from the findings of previous work may be explained by cultural factors, which are further discussed in this article.