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Resilience offsets mental, physical health effects of childhood trauma

Study results showed that psychological resilience in adulthood appeared to counteract the negative effects of childhood adversity on mental and physical health in both adults with schizophrenia and nonpsychiatric comparison adults.

“Although resilience may have a moderating effect on the deleterious impact of childhood trauma on health in people with schizophrenia, to our knowledge there have been no prior published studies examining that possibility,” Ellen E. Lee, MD, of the department of psychiatry and the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California, San Diego, and colleagues wrote in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

The investigators performed a cross-sectional study to assess the effect of childhood adversity and later psychological resilience on mental and physical health and markers of metabolic function among 114 adults with schizophrenia and 101 nonpsychiatric comparison participants. Researchers retrospectively examined emotional abuse/neglect, physical abuse/neglect and sexual abuse experienced during childhood using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and measured resilience using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale.

The results showed that adults with schizophrenia reported significantly higher rates of childhood trauma, poorer mental and physical health, lower resilience and inferior metabolic biomarker levels than those without schizophrenia. Trauma severity was associated with worse depression among nonpsychiatric comparisons, but not among those with schizophrenia; however, trauma severity was linked to worse physical well-being, higher fasting insulin levels and greater insulin resistance (P .02) in both groups.

Participants in both groups with high resilience, regardless of trauma severity, had better mental well-being compared with those with lower resilience. Notably, adults with schizophrenia who had high resilience and severe trauma had mental well-being scores similar to those of nonpsychiatric controls with low resilience and severe trauma (P = .8). High resilience also related to improved physical health and metabolic biomarkers. This subgroup also reported better or comparable physical health and had glycosylated hemoglobin levels and insulin resistance scores similar to those with low resilience and severe trauma.

“The finding that resilience can play a protective or coping role in persons with schizophrenia provides clinicians an opportunity to use nondrug interventions in treatment,” Dilip V. Jeste, MD, of the department of psychiatry and the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, UC San Diego, said in a press release. “High resilience could potentially play a large role in improving health outcomes for people living with schizophrenia. Interventions, like resilience training, could be combined with other therapies, allowing for more comprehensive treatment plans.” – by Savannah Demko

Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.