The role of resilience in the relationship between stressful life events and health in a Romanian sample

Abstract

This study aims to identify the moderator role of resilience in the relationship between exposure to stressful life events and health state. The study included 238 participants from the general Romanian population, aged between 23 and 68 years, M = 44.16, SD = 11.03, 188 women and 50 men. The instruments used were Stressful Life Event Questionnaire, Resilience Scale, RS-14, and General Health Questionnaire, GHQ-12. The results revealed that resilience moderates the relationship between stressful life events and health state, but contrary to our expectations, in a negative direction. The negative relationship between exposure to stressful life events and mental health became non-significant at lower levels of resilience and higher levels of resilience failed to buffer the effects of stressful life events on mental health of the individual. These results extend the current knowledge about resilience’s role in individual’s health state after confronting with stressful life events. The implications of the findings, the limitations, and future research directions were discussed.