Resilience in adults with cancer: development of a conceptual model

Resilience is a construct addressed in the psycho-oncology literature and is especially relevant to cancer survivorship. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for resilience that is specific to adults diagnosed with cancer.

To establish the proposed model, a brief review of the various definitions of resilience and of the resilience literature in oncology is provided.

The proposed model includes baseline attributes (personal and environmental) which impact how an individual responds to an adverse event, which in this paper is cancer-related. The survivor has an initial response that fits somewhere on the distress-resilience continuum; however, post-cancer experiences (and interventions) can modify the initial response through a process of recalibration.

The literature reviewed indicates that resilience is a common response to cancer diagnosis or treatment. The proposed model supports the view of resilience as both an outcome and a dynamic process. Given the process of recalibration, a discussion is provided of interventions that might facilitate resilience in adults with cancer.