Resilience

Research summary

• Cochrane reviews of structured resilience-building programs for healthcare professionals and students, and a broader systematic review of resilience training programmes, find these interventions can improve resilience and reduce stress symptoms, though the underlying trials are often small and the certainty of evidence is graded low-to-moderate due to heterogeneity in program design.
• A Nature Human Behaviour meta-analysis of psychological interventions to improve mental wellbeing found generally positive but modest effects.
• Observational research shows resilience is a meaningful protective factor: longitudinal studies in military personnel link higher resilience to better long-term mental health and functioning, and research in community-living older adults has identified correlates of resilient aging, including the role of social support in buffering the loneliness-depression link.
• Overall the evidence supports resilience as trainable and protective, with moderate rather than high certainty given the quality of available trials.