Testing Kumpfer’s Resilience Model Among Adults With Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

Having a serious mental illness (SMI) is often associated with significant adversities, and people respond differently to adversities. The existing research supports that people with SMI can achieve and maintain positive life outcomes despite experiencing adversities. Resilience, the ability to cope with (or bounce back quickly from) crisis, can help buffer the negative effects of various types of adversities, including chronic illness and disability, and facilitate the psychosocial adaptation process to SMI. Kumpfer’s resilience model, a person-process-context framework, has been widely used to conceptualize, and assess for, resilience in various populations, including people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. However, the research in resilience among people with SMI is very limited. The purpose of this study was to empirically assess the utility of Kumpfer’s resilience model and its proposed predictive components for conceptualizing the adaptation process to SMI. One hundred forty-four participants completed a Qualtrics survey containing demographic questions and a series of validated instruments representing the major components of Kumpfer’s resilience model. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze the data, and the final model explained 71% of the variance of the dependent variable—adaptation to disability. Avoidance coping, internalized stigma, and optimism were significant independent predictors of adaptation to disability. This study supports the utilization of Kumpfer’s resilience model to conceptualize the adaptation to disability process among people with SMI. Implications for rehabilitation counseling practices are discussed.

Psychometric evaluation of the Symptom-Checklist-K-9 among U.S. working-age adults with psychiatric disabilities.

“…The BFI-N was found to exhibit convergent validity by its strong positive correlation to the neuroticism subscale of the Five Factor Form ( r = .81), Five Factor Model Rating Form ( r = .81), and Ten Item Personality Inventory ( r = .81; Rojas & Widiger, 2014). Internal consistency of the neuroticism subscale has ranged between .77 and .87 in previous studies (John & Srivastava, 1999; John et al, 2008; Pan & Sánchez, 2022). The coefficient alpha was .77 in the current study.…”

“…We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a larger study (Pan & Sánchez, 2022). The original study aimed to validate a resilience framework among people with psychiatric disabilities and was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at The University of Iowa.…”

“…Test–retest reliability ( r = .85 at 3 weeks and r = .73 at 8 weeks) support the static nature of the ATHS (Snyder et al, 1991). Internal consistency has been reported to range between .74 and .88 (Pan & Sánchez, 2022; Snyder, 2002). In this study, the coefficient alpha was computed to be .84.…”

Investigating the Efficacy and Experiences With Narrative Exposure Therapy in Severe Mentally Ill Patients With Comorbid Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Receiving Flexible Assertive Community Treatment: A Mixed Methods Study

“…Still, it was also concluded that patients with SMI often do not receive evidence-based TFT ( 42 ). Unfortunately, resilience is still underestimated in outpatients with SMI ( 43 ) and also in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder ( 44 ).…”

An Analysis and Evaluation of Kumpfer's Resilience Framework

“…[21][22][23] In addition, other researchers employed KRF to understand resilience in the face of diverse stressors in 32 studies, including 17 quantitative studies, 9 qualitative studies, 2 studies with mixed design, and 2 case studies. In these studies, KRF enabled researchers to examine the predictors and positive outcomes associated with resilience, 8,35,43,47 generate hypotheses for research questions, 3,6,9,28,36,37,44,46,49 understand and interpret the individuals' adaptation experience through the prism of KRF, * design targeted interventions to increase resilience, 39,45 develop new questionnaires to evaluate individuals' resilience, 32,43 and build disease-specific resilience models to understand resilience in concrete conditions. 4,5,[29][30][31] Thus, KRF is a useful theoretical framework with demonstrated efficacy across numerous studies.…”