Could Resilience Predict the Outcome of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Patients?

Background: Individual resistance to burdens such as stress, adversity, and even disasters is called “resilience”. Whereas most studies of resilience investigate post-traumatic stress disorder, fewer studies treat anxiety and depressiveness in mentally healthy populations. The present pilot study investigates whether resilience lessens the severity of depressive symptoms. Aim was to figure out whether further research is needed on the relation of resilience both to depression and to rehabilitation from it in regard to fitness for work. Design/Setting/Population: A retrospective, non-blind, non-randomized analysis of charts of 503 stationary inpatient-patients was performed. Patients without age limits who suffered from diseases of the depressive spectrum (F32, F33) and also adjustment disorder (F43.2), dysthymia (F34.1), and neurasthenia (F48) according to ICD 10 were included. BDI and resilience scale, state of fitness or unfitness for work, were analysed with correlation analysis and descriptive statistics by the SPSS program. Results: Analysis revealed that resilience and depressive symptoms are inversely related. The higher the resilience the lower the BDI score, indicating a lower burden of depressive symptoms. Resilience also seems to influence important outcome factors of rehabilitation such as reintegration in work and remission of depressive symptoms. Patients who either were fit for work at the beginning of rehabilitation or were dismissed as fit for work had higher resilience scores than those who were unfit for work. Conclusion: This pilot study encourages further investigation of the relation of resilience not only to depressive disorders, but also to rehabilitation and social reintegration after depression.