Resilience in Health

Original Editor - Lucinda hampton

Top Contributors - Lucinda hampton and Vidya Acharya

Introduction

Resilience, the ability to bounce back, and to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy or threats. Resilience is a protective factor making an individual resilient to adverse events, leading to positive outcomes. Resilience is seen as a positive adaptation after stressful situations and it represents mechanisms of coping and rising above tough experiences. Watch this interesting informative 2 minute video.

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Resilient people are:

• more optimistic,
• tend to view all event as a useful experience,
• focus on personal strengths and qualities,
• utilise constructive criticism,
• develop close relationships with others,
• exhibit developed social skills, and possess emotional intelligence (ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others).

Good resilience prevents the onset of disease, facilitates and accelerates healing, and gives a sense of well-being even if the individual has chronic illness.

Health Implications

There exists:

1. A negative relationship between resilience and depression, anxiety, incapacity, and somatization
2. An negative correlation between resilience scores and the progression of illness (eg activity of the disease, control of glycemic level, severity of depression)
3. An association between resilience and quality of life and health promotional behavior.

Individuals with low resilience:

• often easily feel overwhelmed and helpless
• will rely on unhealthy coping strategies such as:
  • Avoidance
  • Isolation
  • Self-medication

• exhibit low ability to adapt to a changing environment

Multiple Factors in Determining Resilience

Resilience in individuals relates and evolves in context to their social systems, which are be more or less resilient in their own right, alongside the adaptive psychological capacities of the individual.

Responses to trauma and significant stressors are determined by multiple dynamic, interacting individual‐level systems (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, developmental, neurobiological), which are embedded in larger social systems (e.g., family, cultural, economic, and political systems). Building resilient social system fosters individual resilience.

• Higher resilience was associated with female gender, married marital status, high education, and full-time occupation.
• Social support and social network were positively associated with resilience.

Resilience Includes:

1. Internal resilience factors (include mental health, various psychological factors, QOL and lifestyle).
2. External resilience factors (include social connectedness, income, and interventions)

We see resilience is a process made up of many things including but not limited to adaptive coping behaviours. To build resilience consider the below:

• Build your connections
• Foster wellness eg taking care of your body, practice mindfulness
• Find purpose eg volunteer, seek opportunities for self-discovery
• Foster healthy thoughts eg keep a hopeful outlook, learn from the past
• Seek help from relevant health professional

Relevance Physiotherapy

Methods to promote resilience includes fostering social connections, optimism, self-care, mindfulness practices, and meaningful recognition. Resilience may mitigate many of the harmful effects for individuals coping/living in a stressful situation. Promoting resilience in clients helpful for them to take more control in the health. Examples are given below.

• Resilience promotion for individuals with a chronic/terminal health condition helps them adjust to life with there condition. The provision of psychosocial support and illness-related information, as well as learning self-management skills, are essential elements of patient education interventions, aiming to improve resilience among this population.
• Traumatic Head Injury (TBI). Individuals with TBI are at risk for low resilience, correlating with psychological distress and psychosocial poor adjustment. Developing interventions to strengthen resilience skills potentially can improve postinjury psychosocial adjustment
• Stroke. The levels of resilience among stroke survivors is low compared with those in the normal older population. Health professionals would assist by providing greater psychological support and especially to those with vulnerable to low resilience ie lower income, higher stroke severity at discharge, no religion, lower self-efficacy, or survivors using resignation as a coping strategy. Similarly family resilience and functioning among patients with stroke are positively correlated with the mediating effects of the patients' coping style and self‐efficacy between family resilience and ability to function.
• Neurodegenerative Diseases (NDDs), eg Huntington’s Disease; Multiple Sclerosis; Parkinson’s Disease: Various factors are identified for psychological resilience in NDDs. As resilience is modifiable, resilience-enhancing interventions for people with NDDs is important.
• See also Motivation and Resilience for Athletes

The below is a 3 minute video on the resilience of nurses, but you may see the allied health professionals reflected in the piece also.

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