The Mediating Effects of Hardiness on Resilience in Repatriated Vietnam-Era Prisoners of War

Previous research from our Center has documented the importance of various psychological factors in predicting psychiatric resilience (Segovia et.al, 2012) and health (Segovia et. al, 2015) in repatriated Vietnam-era prisoners of war. Optimism was shown to be a better predictor of long-term psychiatric health than variables such as amount of antisocial/psychopathic traits, post-traumatic symptomatology upon repatriation, age, and length of solitary confinement. In the follow-up study (Segovia et. al, 2015), optimism measured at repatriation was again an excellent predictor of a composite measure of psychological (9 component measures) and physical (9 component measures) health. These findings emphasized the need to pursue a more direct assessment of resilience using both neurobiological (allostatic load) and psychological measures.