The moderating role of resilience in the relationship between state and trait anxiety and post-traumatic growth of medical freshmen

Abstract

BackgroundPsychological distress such as anxiety of medical students especially during the first-year has been widely acknowledged. However, many students could exhibit post-traumatic growth when experiencing anxiety. Previous study demonstrated that anxiety might have impacts on post-traumatic growth, but how anxiety affects post-traumatic growth is still undefined. This study sought to examine whether resilience has a moderating role between state and trait anxiety and post-traumatic growth when medical freshmen are experiencing stressful events. MethodsA total of 295 medical freshmen were administered the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. ResultsPost-traumatic growth was negatively correlated with state anxiety and trait anxiety, with a correlation coefficient of −0.474 and −0.462 (p < 0.01), and positively correlated with resilience, with a correlation coefficient of 0.635 (p < 0.01). Resilience acted as a moderator for the indirect effect of state and trait anxiety on post-traumatic growth. ConclusionsThese findings demonstrated resilience could be of extreme importance for developing post-traumatic growth, and therapeutic interventions tailored to the medical freshmen to promote their resilience to adapt to life in college.