The concept of resilience has been defined as the capacity of individuals to cope with traumatic events, namely the capacity to “maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning (…) as well as the capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions”
[1]. While some authors have argued that resilience cannot be directly measured but only inferred from the study of both risk factors and positive adaptation following an adverse life event,
[2],
[3], others have proposed quantification of resilience using specific scales
[4]. Among the scales developed to explore resilience in adults, two types of instruments have been used. The first one measures a subject's self-evaluation of prior experience in successfully overcoming stressful events and positive changes. In this case the resilience evaluation requires the presence of a stressor or a research participant’s recollection of their response to a previous one. The second group measures subjective factors, which are considered as determinants of resilience (e.g. personal competence or social resources) and may prospectively determine resilience but does not evaluate resilience itself
[5].
Of the first group instruments measuring resilience, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) is a self-administered scale of 25 items that exhibits good psychometric properties
[6]. It was designed to be widely applicable to different populations establishing norms for resilience in normal and clinical samples, and to assess the extent to which resilience scores can change in response to treatment
[6]. CD-RISC was initially considered to be multidimensional, with five factors corresponding to personal competence/tenacity, trust in one's instincts/tolerance of negative affect, positive acceptance of change/secure relationships, control, and spirituality
[6]. However further studies across independent samples of different ages and cultures has revealed instability in the factor structure
[7],
[8],
[9],
[10] leading to the validation of an abridged 10-items version, the CD-RISC-10. The retained 10 items reflect the ability to bounce back from the variety of challenges that can arise in life
[11]. This unidimensional version has equally excellent psychometric properties as the longer version, is applicable for different cultures and is quite adapted to large epidemiological studies
[11],
[12],
[13].
In a sample of 132 students, Campbell-Sills et al. have shown that regardless the CD-RISC version (complete or abridged) resilience was associated with personality dimensions such as neuroticism or extraversion as well as coping styles
[11],
[14]. The main relevance of these studies is that authors have attempted “to capture the essence of resilience” showing that resilience scores could moderate the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and current psychiatric symptoms
[11],
[14]. More recently a similar observation was reproduced in a highly traumatized, at risk, urban population (median age 36 years, predominantly African American). The authors showed that childhood abuse or later traumas of adult life contributed to current depressive symptoms severity while resilience mitigated it
[15]. In all these cross-sectional studies, the authors have implicitly considered resilience as a personality trait, assuming that high resilience score lead to fewer psychiatric symptoms in individuals. It is however, also conceivable that psychiatric symptoms can cause these persons to evaluate themselves as less resilient
[14]. Thus the nature of the relationship between resilience score and current psychiatric symptoms in adults remains to be specified. Likewise the impact of past psychiatric diagnoses on resilience score is largely unknown. In addition research undertaken in general populations with the CD-RISC is based on the assumption that resilience is observed independently of the level of the stress exposure. Past traumatic events may affect the development of post-traumatic symptoms following an adverse life event and thus positive adaptation/resilience
[16]. However the impact of previous trauma on self-evaluation of resilience in the face of current moderate levels of stress is largely unknown.
Given the increasing interest of psychiatric research in the relative capacity for healthy adaptation to life adversities as well as the clinical relevance of resilience measure
[6], this retrospective epidemiological study aims to evaluate resilience in a high-risk women sample, using the abridged version of the CD-RISC, taking into account life-time history of trauma (distinguishing personal from non-personal events), socio-demographic characteristics and lifetime mental health.