Resilience Among Older Individuals in the Face of Adversity: How Demographic and Trait Factors Affect Mental-Health Constructs and Their Temporal Dynamics

Abstract

Resilience can be conceptualized as a network of interacting mental-health constructs characterized by weak autoconnections and/or interconnections. We investigated whether positive appraisal style (PAS), the ability to bounce back or recover from stress (BRS), age, education level, and urbanization grade can confer such desirable network properties within a network comprising depression, anxiety, loneliness, and mental well-being. Longitudinal data (five time points during the COVID-19 pandemic) were derived from a sample of older adults ( N = 1,270, 55+). Individuals who were 67 or older, highly educated, or scored high on PAS and BRS exhibited more resilient network dynamics and generally better overall mental-health outcomes. Findings pertaining to urbanization grade and the (subgroup-dependent) dynamics among the mental-health constructs are also discussed. These findings may inform theorizing and interventions aimed at resilience during a challenging life phase.

Resilience and Meaning-and-Purpose 5-6 Months into the COVID-19 Disaster: The Moderating Role of Having a Pre-existing Mental Health Condition in a Cross-sectional Survey Study (Preprint)

“…However, our sample was racially/ethnically diverse, with 55.7% of participants representing minoritized demographics. Furthermore, findings are consistent with longitudinal COVID-19 research (e.g., Brinkhof et al 14 ) which found that generally mental health improved over time, but that anxiety in particular was a precursor to poor mental health. Future research would benefit from a larger generalizable sample, as well as longitudinal data collection on resilience especially given the potential for resilience interventions (see Chen & Bonanno 25 ).…”

“…12,13 In one study of 1,270 older adults (age 55+), resilience was associated with better mental health outcomes at five subsequent timepoints between April and June, 2020. 14 With respect to having a sense of meaning and purpose (meaning-and-purpose), this was found to be a latent protective factor for developing symptoms, and negatively associated with anxiety and depression. 15 Much of the data utilized to investigate these associations were collected during the first few months of the pandemic.…”

Evidence for a causal-mechanistic role for positive appraisal style in stress resilience

“…Another insight from the available data is that PAS is a resilience factor across different populations: European adults 15,17 , mental health practitioners from various countries 16 , Dutch Parkinson patients 18 , German young adults (MARP), German adults (LORA), and Spanish health care workers (RESPOND-RCT Spain). (We also note that PASS-process was inversely related to internalizing symptoms and to the strength of symptom network connections in Dutch elderly persons during the pandemic 52 .) This conclusion is still limited by the absence of data from non-European and from non-adult samples.…”

Stress exposure, perceived stress severity, and their effects on health

“…On the other hand, social and psychological factors that buff er the onset of biological risks have been recognized (Cohen, Murphy, & Prather, 2018;McEwen, 2019, McEwen & Stellar, 1993Epel et al, 2018;Fitzgerald et al, 2021;McEwen, 2019;Schattuck, 2021). Along the same lines, one's ability to cope with stress has been shown to change with age: higher resilience to stress and adversity has been documented for older individuals and for more educated individuals (Brinkhof et al, 2023), including them having better mental health outcomes longitudinally. Following these and other fi ndings, attempts at designing interventions to slow down the process of immunosenescence caused by poverty are presently made.…”