Effects of age on trait resilience in a population-based cohort and two patient cohorts

We examined (i) the mean-level stability and change of trait resilience with age in three cohorts from a single study (population-based controls, depression patients, cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients), (ii) associations of sociodemographic, personality, and other factors (sex, education, Big Five, childhood trauma, depressive symptoms) with trait resilience, and (iii) the intra-individual stability across repeated trait resilience self-assessments.

1544 participants from the BiDirect Study completed the Resilienzskala-11 (RS-11; German short version of the resilience scale 25) up to three times over about four years. The repeated-measures data were analyzed using linear mixed models, stratified by cohort. Outcome was the RS-11 score, the underlying time variable was age. All factors mentioned above were considered as fixed main effects. Bland-Altman plots assessed intra-individual stability of RS-11 scores.

(i) In the population-based control cohort, there was no association between age and trait resilience (est.: -0.01; 95%-CI: -0.06, 0.04). There were modest positive associations in the patient cohorts (depression: est.: 0.08; 95%-CI: -0.01, 0.16; CVD: est.: 0.15; 95%-CI: 0.03, 0.26). (ii) For all cohorts, female sex, high education, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Big Five) were associated positively with trait resilience. Childhood trauma, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism were associated negatively with trait resilience. (iii) In all cohorts, the level of intra-individual stability was moderate.

We found that trait resilience was rather stable across decades of age in all cohorts, albeit intra-individual self-assessments agreed only moderately. We confirmed previous findings regarding negative and positive associations of personality and sociodemographic factors with trait resilience.