Resilience in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis

Abstract

It has been suggested that resilience may be a protective factor with respect to mental illness. This may be an important factor for those who are vulnerable to psychiatric illness. Thus, the aims of this paper were to compare levels of resilience between individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and healthy controls, and to examine associations between resilience and clinical measures, functioning and trauma of CHR participants. Eighty participants, 40 CHR and 40 University of Calgary undergraduate students, completed two resilience questionnaires: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure. A t-test revealed a significant difference between the groups on levels of resilience (t = 4.34, P < 0.01), demonstrating that CHR participants have lower levels of resilience than healthy controls. In terms of the associations between resilience and measures of mental health of CHR participants, it was found that higher levels of resilience were related to lower negative symptoms, depression and anxiety. Furthermore, resilient CHR participants showed higher levels of role functioning and generally reported higher positive schemas of self and others, as well as lower stress to reported life events. No associations were found between resilience and attenuated psychotic symptoms, social functioning, IQ and trauma. The results of the current study suggest that resilience may be beneficial to other mental issues present in CHR individuals but this may not be the case for attenuated psychotic symptoms.