Personal Resource Questionnaire

Abstract

The Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ), specifically in its refined iteration designated as the PRQ85-Part 2, is one of the most extensively utilized psychometric instruments in nursing research, behavioral medicine, and health psychology for evaluating multidimensional perceived social support. Conceptualized initially by Patricia A. Brandt and Clarann Weinert in 1981, and substantially refined by Weinert in 1987 and 1988, the PRQ was constructed to operationalize Robert S. Weiss’s relational provisions model within clinical, community, and epidemiological frameworks. The PRQ85-Part 2 consists of a 25-item self-report questionnaire scored across an authentic 7-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree), yielding a theoretical total score continuum between 25 and 175 points. Five negatively keyed items (Items 4, 7, 10, 16, and 24) are reverse-scored to mitigate acquiescence response bias. The instrument measures five distinct conceptual dimensions of relational support: intimacy and emotional nurturance, social integration, reassurance of worth, availability of assistance and guidance, and opportunity for nurturance. Across hundreds of peer-reviewed empirical investigations, the PRQ85-Part 2 has demonstrated excellent psychometric properties, consistently yielding internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) between .87 and .93 across diverse demographic cohorts, healthy adults, chronically ill populations, and multicultural samples. Construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity are substantiated through robust empirical associations with psychological well-being, adaptive health practices, systemic coping mechanisms, and physiological stress biomarkers, alongside inverse correlations with depressive symptomatology, trait anxiety, and caregiver burden.

Keywords

Personal Resource Questionnaire, PRQ85, Social Support Measurement, Relational Provisions, Perceived Social Support, Psychometrics, Nursing Assessment, Health Practices, Clarann Weinert, Patricia A. Brandt

Authors

The Personal Resource Questionnaire was originally developed by Patricia A. Brandt, PhD, RN, and Clarann Weinert, SC, PhD, RN, FAAN. At the time of the instrument’s initial publication in 1981, both investigators were affiliated with the School of Nursing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, United States. Dr. Patricia A. Brandt specialized in maternal-child health nursing, family adaptation, and developmental psychology, focusing on how parental support networks influence pediatric health trajectories.

Dr. Clarann Weinert, a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth and Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), subsequently spearheaded the extensive longitudinal validation, psychometric refinement, and psychometric reduction of the tool at the College of Nursing, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, where she served as Professor Emerita and Director of the Center for Research on Chronic Health Conditions in Rural Peoples. Dr. Weinert dedicated decades of scholarship to elucidating the buffering role of social support in managing chronic illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders in geographically isolated and vulnerable populations.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ85-Part 2) is to deliver a reliable, psychometrically robust, and theoretically grounded measurement of an individual’s perceived relational resources and social support network. Historically, clinical assessments of social environments suffered from severe methodological heterogeneity, often confounding structural social network size (e.g., number of friends or marital status) with functional social support processes (the subjective perception of feeling valued, guided, and cared for). Brandt and Weinert designed the PRQ to bridge this conceptual divide, ensuring that clinicians and behavioral researchers could quantify the qualitative, perceived availability of relational resources rather than merely counting social contacts.

In healthcare and clinical settings, the PRQ85-Part 2 is deployed to identify individuals at elevated risk of psychosocial morbidity. Deficits in perceived social support are well-established precursors to poor treatment adherence, delayed healthcare-seeking behaviors, elevated systemic inflammation, and exacerbated vulnerability to emotional disorders like major depressive disorder. Clinicians working in oncology, cardiology, chronic pain management, and palliative care utilize the PRQ to evaluate baseline psychosocial resilience before initiating complex therapeutic regimens. Identifying specific resource deficiencies—such as an absence of practical guidance or a perceived lack of social integration—enables healthcare teams to deploy targeted psychosocial interventions, such as peer support groups, family counseling, or community navigators.

In academic research, the PRQ85-Part 2 is widely utilized as an independent, mediating, or moderating variable within epidemiological and behavioral health models. Investigators rely on the scale to examine how social support mediates the relationship between socioeconomic or environmental stressors and positive health practices, such as preventive cancer screenings, physical activity, dietary compliance, and smoking cessation. Furthermore, within stress-coping paradigms, the instrument provides an empirical index of social capital, allowing researchers to study how relational resources buffer the physiological and psychological impacts of chronic life strains.

Psychological Construct

The Personal Resource Questionnaire operationalizes perceived social support as a multidimensional construct rooted in reciprocal interpersonal processes. Rather than treating support as a monolithic entity, the PRQ captures the cognitive appraisal of relational assets across five primary dimensions:

1. Intimacy and Emotional Nurturance

This dimension assesses the presence of close, affective relationships that provide safety, emotional security, unconditional acceptance, and profound personal validation. Individuals high in this dimension report having confidants with whom they can share vulnerable internal states without fear of rejection. Scale items evaluating this facet include: “There is someone I feel close to who makes me feel secure” (Item 1), “When I am upset there is someone I can be with who lets me be myself” (Item 15), and “There is someone who loves and cares about me” (Item 19). Deficits in this construct manifest as emotional loneliness and perceived vulnerability to environmental threats.

2. Social Integration

Social integration refers to an individual’s sense of belonging to a cohesive peer network, civic association, or shared-interest collective. It reflects the realization that one is not isolated in life’s challenges, accompanied by participation in shared social activities and recreational pursuits. Scale items measuring this construct include: “I belong to a group in which I feel important” (Item 2), “I spend time with others who have the same interests I do” (Item 6), and “I feel no one has the same problems as I” (Item 16, reverse-scored). This dimension reflects social companionship, recreational engagement, and existential solidarity.

3. Reassurance of Worth

Reassurance of worth captures the acknowledgment and positive affirmation of an individual’s personal competence, skills, occupational capabilities, and relational value by others. It bolsters self-esteem and perceived self-efficacy. Illustrative items include: “People let me know that I do well at my work (job, school)” (Item 3), “Others let me know that they enjoy working with me (job, committees, projects)” (Item 8), and “I know that others appreciate me as a person” (Item 18). Low scores on this dimension often coincide with feelings of inadequacy, impostorism, and generalized demoralization.

4. Availability of Assistance and Guidance

This domain encompasses informational, tangible, and instrumental support. It denotes the subjective confidence that reliable resources, actionable advice, material assistance, and long-term aid will be accessible during crises. Items representing this facet include: “There are people who are available if I needed help over an extended period of time” (Item 9), “I have relatives or friends that will help me out even if I can’t pay them back” (Item 14), and “If I need advice there is someone who would assist me to work out a plan for dealing with the situation” (Item 22). This dimension directly reflects problem-focused coping capacity.

5. Opportunity for Nurturance

Distinct from purely passive recipient models of social support, the PRQ explicitly incorporates an individual’s perception of their own capacity to provide care, support, and guidance to others. This bidirectional conceptualization acknowledges that being needed, holding responsibility for another’s welfare, and nurturing others’ development are critical components of social identity and psychological thriving. This dimension is measured by items such as: “There is little opportunity in my life to be giving and caring to another person” (Item 7, reverse-scored), “I have the opportunity to encourage others to develop their interests and skills” (Item 12), and “I have a sense of being needed by another person” (Item 23).

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical bedrock of the Personal Resource Questionnaire is Robert S. Weiss’s relational provisions theory, formulated in his seminal 1974 work The Provisions of Social Relationships. Weiss posited that psychological well-being requires access to six fundamental relational provisions, each typically supplied by distinct categories of interpersonal partnerships:

• Attachment: Provided by intimate relationships, offering emotional safety and security.
• Social Integration: Supplied by friendship networks, providing companionship and shared interests.
• Reassurance of Worth: Provided by collegial or family ties, confirming an individual’s competence and social role.
• Reliable Alliance: Supplied primarily by kin, guaranteeing ongoing tangible and material assistance.
• Guidance: Provided by mentors, authority figures, or trusted peers, offering cognitive clarity and advice.
• Opportunity for Nurturance: Delivered through parenthood, caregiving, or mentorship, satisfying the evolutionary drive to protect and foster others.

Weiss asserted that when any of these relational provisions is absent, individuals experience distinct forms of distress. For example, a lack of attachment generates emotional isolation, whereas an absence of social integration yields social loneliness. Brandt and Weinert synthesized Weiss’s six relational provisions into five operationalized psychometric dimensions, combining guidance and reliable alliance into a unified “assistance/guidance” factor to optimize clinical utility.

Furthermore, the PRQ aligns closely with the stress-buffering model conceptualized by Sheldon Cohen and Thomas Wills (1985). Within this paradigm, social support acts as a protective psychological buffer that alters cognitive appraisals of potential stressors. When individuals perceive that ample social resources are readily available, potential environmental threats are appraised as manageable challenges rather than catastrophic burdens. Consequently, the physiological cascade of neuroendocrine stress—characterized by prolonged hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation and autonomic arousal—is substantially blunted. Brandt and Weinert embedded these relational concepts within nursing science, affirming that human adaptation to physiological and environmental crises depends fundamentally on interpersonal ecosystems.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ85-Part 2) has been confirmed through extensive construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related empirical investigations over four decades.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity was established by Weinert (1987, 1988) by demonstrating that PRQ85 scores correlate predictably with standardized theoretical constructs. Confirmatory analytic procedures demonstrate that the 25 items reflect the underlying conceptual construct of perceived social support. In diverse clinical samples, the PRQ85-Part 2 demonstrates high factor stability across gender, age brackets, and geographical regions (Weinert & Brandt, 1987).

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been evaluated across clinical and community cohorts. PRQ85-Part 2 scores demonstrate strong positive correlations with alternative validated social support instruments, such as the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; r = .72 to .81) and the Social Provisions Scale (SPS; r = .68 to .78). Furthermore, the scale correlates positively with indicators of general well-being, self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; r = .45 to .56), dispositional optimism (Life Orientation Test-Revised; r = .38 to .49), and proactive health behaviors (Ayres & Mahat, 2012; Gage & Yarcheski, 2014).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is supported by robust, statistically significant negative correlations with validated indices of psychological distress. Weinert (1987, 1988) reported inverse associations between the PRQ85 and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale (ranging from r = -.41 to -.58), state-trait anxiety measures (r = -.35 to -.48), and perceived stress scales (r = -.40 to -.52). The tool discriminates effectively between individuals experiencing high versus low caregiver strain and between well-integrated community residents versus socially isolated populations.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

Predictive validity is demonstrated across numerous longitudinal health outcomes studies. For example, Ayres (2008) and Ayres, Atkins, and Li (2010) identified the PRQ85 as a significant positive predictor of adherence to preventive health practices, including cervical cancer screening and routine wellness behaviors in multicultural cohorts. In chronic illness populations, higher baseline PRQ85 scores predict reduced hospital readmission rates, improved functional recovery trajectories following myocardial infarction, and superior glycemic control among individuals with diabetes.

Reliability

The PRQ85-Part 2 exhibits exceptional internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse populations and study designs.

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the foundational psychometric evaluation conducted by Weinert (1987), the total scale Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the PRQ85-Part 2 was reported at .89 in a normative sample of 149 adults. Subsequent cross-validation studies involving large, diverse populations yielded remarkably consistent coefficients, typically falling between .87 and .93:

• Rural adults and chronically ill individuals (Weinert & Brandt, 1987): α = .88 – .91
• Middle and late adolescents (Ayres, 2008; Gage & Yarcheski, 2014): α = .90 – .93
• Culturally diverse and immigrant cohorts, including Asian American and Filipino populations (Ayres et al., 2010; Ayres & Mahat, 2012): α = .89 – .92

Corrected item-total correlations across the 25 items consistently exceed .35, with the vast majority ranging between .45 and .71, confirming strong item homogeneity.

Test-Retest Reliability and Temporal Stability

Temporal stability has been verified across varied retest intervals. Weinert (1987, 1988) demonstrated a four-week test-retest reliability coefficient of r = .72 in healthy adult volunteers. Over extended observation windows, such as six-month follow-up evaluations in longitudinal studies of rural family caregivers, stability coefficients remained elevated (r = .65 to .70), demonstrating that while the PRQ85 captures enduring cognitive perceptions of relational support, it remains appropriately sensitive to genuine shifts in environmental resources.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the PRQ85-Part 2 has been thoroughly evaluated through both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) techniques across decades of validation research.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the original structural investigations conducted by Brandt and Weinert (1981) on the PRQ-77 and subsequent refinement into the PRQ85 (Weinert, 1987), principal components analysis with varimax and oblique rotations generally extracted between three and five factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1.0. These factors closely mirrored Weiss’s conceptual provisions:

• Factor 1 (Intimacy / Belonging): Capturing high item loadings (> .60) on items reflecting unconditional emotional closeness and mutual acceptance (Items 1, 5, 15, 19).
• Factor 2 (Guidance and Instrumental Assistance): Characterized by high loadings on advice-seeking, informational aid, and long-term tangible support (Items 9, 14, 22, 25).
• Factor 3 (Reassurance of Worth / Social Affirmation): Defined by items capturing competence appraisal in work and family roles (Items 3, 8, 13, 18).
• Factor 4 (Opportunity for Nurturance): Accounting for loadings on items measuring caregiving utility, feeling needed, and supporting others (Items 7, 12, 17, 21, 23).
• Factor 5 (Social Integration / Shared Interests): Comprising items reflecting peer recreation and shared experiences (Items 2, 6, 11, 20).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Second-Order Models

Subsequent confirmatory factor analyses, however, revealed substantial inter-factor correlations among the five dimensions, with bivariate latent factor correlations frequently exceeding r = .65. Consequently, psychometricians tested a hierarchical second-order model wherein the five first-order latent factors loaded onto a singular global perceived social support construct. Goodness-of-fit indices for the second-order model have yielded acceptable-to-excellent values across empirical investigations: comparative fit index (CFI) = .91 – .95; Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = .90 – .94; and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .045 – .062 (90% CI: .040, .068).

Because the global construct accounts for the primary variance across items, Weinert (1987, 1988) and subsequent psychometric consensus recommend utilizing the PRQ85-Part 2 primarily as a unidimensional composite score (summing all 25 items after reverse coding) in empirical modeling, while reserving subscale breakdowns for qualitative, diagnostic, or profile assessments.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Personal Resource Questionnaire (PRQ) / Personal Resource Questionnaire 85 – Part 2 (PRQ85-Part 2).
• Authors: Patricia A. Brandt, PhD, RN, and Clarann Weinert, SC, PhD, RN, FAAN.
• Format: 25-item self-administered, pen-and-paper or computerized questionnaire.
• Target Population: Adolescents (middle and late), adults, geriatric cohorts, community samples, and clinical patient populations.
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
• Authentic Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale rated as:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neutral
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Procedure:
  • Reverse Scoring: Items 4, 7, 10, 16, and 24 are negatively worded and must be inverted prior to score computation using the transformation: New Score = 8 – Original Score (e.g., a raw response of 7 becomes 1, 6 becomes 2, 5 becomes 3, 4 remains 4, 3 becomes 5, 2 becomes 6, and 1 becomes 7).
  • Total Score Calculation: Sum all 25 items (accounting for the five inverted items). Total composite scores range between 25 and 175.
  • Score Interpretation: Higher cumulative scores reflect greater perceived availability and adequacy of multidimensional social support resources. Scores below 120 typically signify borderline to severely deficient perceived relational resources in clinical evaluations.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Personal Resource Questionnaire was originally introduced in 1981 (as the PRQ-77), with the streamlined and standardized PRQ85-Part 2 finalized and published in 1987 and 1988. The scale was developed under federally funded academic research grants through the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) and academic research institutions. Dr. Clarann Weinert maintained an academic open-access policy for non-profit research and clinical scholarship, permitting registered researchers and healthcare professionals to utilize the PRQ85 without royalty fees, provided proper bibliographic attribution is maintained and items remain unaltered. The full instrument and its user manual have been archived and made accessible through academic dissertations and nursing measurement compendiums (e.g., Rutgers University Library repository; Springer Publishing measurement series).

References

Ayres, C. G. (2008). Mediators of the relationship between social support and positive health practices in middle adolescents. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 22(2), 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2007.02.007

Ayres, C. G., Atkins, R., & Li, J. H. (2010). Factors related to health practices: Cervical cancer screening among Filipino women. Research and Theory for Nursing Practice: An International Journal, 24(3), 197–208. https://doi.org/10.1891/1541-6577.24.3.197

Ayres, C. G., & Mahat, G. (2012). Social support, acculturation, and optimism: Understanding positive health practices in Asian American college students. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 23(3), 270–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659612441018

Brandt, P. A., & Weinert, C. (1981). The PRQ—A social support measure. Nursing Research, 30(5), 277–280. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-198109000-00007

Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.310

Gage, G. S. (2014). An investigation of mediators of the relationship between social support and positive health practices in black late adolescents (Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University, Graduate School – Newark). Rutgers University Libraries Electronic Theses and Dissertations. https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/43765/

Weinert, C. (1987). A social support measure: PRQ85. Nursing Research, 36(5), 273–277. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-198709000-00007

Weinert, C. (1988). Measuring social support: Revision and further development of the Personal Resource Questionnaire. In C. F. Waltz & O. L. Strickland (Eds.), Measurement of nursing outcomes: Measuring client outcomes (Vol. 1, pp. 309–327). Springer Publishing Company.

Weinert, C., & Brandt, P. A. (1987). Measuring social support with the Personal Resource Questionnaire. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 9(4), 589–602. https://doi.org/10.1177/019394598700900411

Weiss, R. S. (1974). The provisions of social relationships. In Z. Rubin (Ed.), Doing unto others: Joining, molding, conforming, helping, loving (pp. 17–26). Prentice-Hall.

Items of the Scale