A psychobiological resilience factor for mental health across the lifespan

Psychological resilience plays a crucial role in maintaining individual mental health in the face of stressful events, adversity, and even trauma. However, resilience, may be a dynamic and evolving process, which presents challenges for precise definition and measurement, particularly during the rapid developmental period of adolescence. In this study, we demonstrated that the self-reported ability to bounce back from adversity of middle-aged to older adults (UKB) can reflect their mental fortitude over a 16-year period. We then constructed a psychosocial model based on UKB to predict resilience from multi-level factors, such as personality traits, family-support, and economics. The model revealed that personality traits and life satisfaction accounted for the largest proportion of resilience variance. When applied prospectively to a longitudinal adolescent cohort (IMAGEN; n=692), this model accurately identified trauma-exposed adolescents who maintained mental health outcomes comparable to non-traumatised peers up to age 23. These findings demonstrate that psychosocial mechanisms stabilised in adulthood can predict adaptive functioning after early adversity, providing a lifespan framework for the early identification and prevention of mental health vulnerability.