Resilience after severe critical illness: a prospective, multicentre, observational study (RESIREA)

Critical-illness survivors may experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and quality-of-life impairments. Resilience may protect against psychological trauma but has not been adequately studied after critical illness. We assessed resilience and its associations with PTSD and quality of life, and also identified factors associated with greater resilience.

This prospective, multicentre, study in patients recruited at 41 French ICUs was done in parallel with the NUTRIREA-3 trial in patients given mechanical ventilation and vasoactive amines for shock. Three months to one year after intensive-care-unit admission, survivors completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25), Impact of Event-Revised scale for PTSD symptoms (IES-R), SF-36 quality-of-life scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), and Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ).

Of the 382 included patients, 203 (53.1%) had normal or high resilience (CD-RISC-25 ≥ 68). Of these resilient patients, 26 (12.8%) had moderate to severe PTSD symptoms (IES-R ≥ 24) vs. 45 (25.4%) patients with low resilience (p = 0.002). Resilient patients had higher SF-36 scores. Factors independently associated with higher CD-RISC-25 scores were higher MSPSS score indicating stronger social support (OR, 1.027; 95%CI 1.008-1.047; p = 0.005) and lower B-IPQ scores indicating a more threatening perception of the illness (OR, 0.973; 95%CI 0.950-0.996; p = 0.02).

Resilient patients had a lower prevalence of PTSD symptoms and higher quality of life scores, compared to patients with low resilience. Higher scores for social support and illness perception were independently associated with greater resilience. Thus, our findings suggest that interventions to strengthen social support and improve illness perception may help to improve resilience. Such interventions should be evaluated in trials with PTSD mitigation and quality-of-life improvement as the target outcomes.