The construct of resilience has gained considerable attention over the last four decades since researchers observed that children and youth could cope and adapt in spite of adversity. Resilience involves a dynamic process involving an interaction between both risk and protective processes, internal and external to the individual, that can modify the effects of an adverse life event. Adolescence is considered to be a period of vulnerability for most individuals as they often partake in high risk behaviors. Further, those individuals who are in their early college years are faced with the developmental challenges of this life phase which can be complicated by a variety of stresses. Investigating resilience in college students is of great importance as these adolescents may incur additional stress as they make the transition to adulthood. Empirical evidence indicates that resilience is dynamic, developmental in nature, and interactive with one's environment. A variety of variables have been studied to clarify the concept of resilience in adolescents, yet there continues to be inconsistent findings. Although there is an abundance of literature regarding adolescent resilience, little is known about this process in the healthy well-adjusted adolescent college student. Additionally there are inconsistencies in reported findings about whether resilience is a healthy state. There is also evidence in the literature that contradictions exist regarding the effect of social support on this process. After review of the psychometric properties of existing instruments, the Resilience Scale was determined to have the best reliability and validity use for the study of resilience in the adolescent population. An exploratory model testing design was used to explore the relationships among a set of variables, including personal characteristics, levels of stress, high risk behaviors, and levels of resilience in adolescents ages 18 to 20 years. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained prior to data collection. The study participants attended a community college and met the sample selection criteria. A convenience sampling plan was used. Recruitment of participants followed the college protocol for contacting professors teaching general education classes during the planned data collection time. The study measures included a demographic questionnaire, two perceived stress visual analog scales, the Health Behaviors Questionnaire, and the Resilience Scale. Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables for the total sample (n=166) and recoding performed as needed by the instruments. Model testing was performed using correlations, hierarchical multiple regression, and path analysis to identify the strongest predictive variables. The strongest predictive model was personal characteristics and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk to the visual analog scale Stress in General (R2 = .519, F = 3.13, p = .000). This model was used for path analysis and the significant variables were ethnicity (standardized beta coefficients of .165, p = .036) and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk (standardized beta coefficients of .567, p = .000). These findings are important for health care providers to use as a basis for driving interventions to optimize resilience and reduce stress in adolescents. Further research should focus on ways to enhance coping and adaptation in an effort to reduce emotional risks which potentially increase stress in similar populations. Research regarding resilience and stress can further be expanded to the study of additional populations at risk, including adults and others such as nursing students, war veterans, and disaster victims.

Background: Previous research has demonstrated that a history of childhood maltreatment can lead to significant negative consequences across multiple domains of functioning. A significant minority of individuals remain resilience to such negative consequences, necessitating further research into the factors which protect against negative outcomes in young people who have experienced adversity. A systematic review of the literature was carried out in order to assess the evidence base for factors that predict adolescent resilience following childhood maltreatment. Several factors across the individual, family and community level were identified, however, evidence regarding these factors was mixed. Factors that have been shown to predict resilience in other age groups require further validation within adolescent samples. Aim: The first aim of this study was to investigate the role of resilience in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and psychological distress. The second aim was to address a possible role for attachment in mediating the relationship between childhood maltreatment and resilience. Method: Adolescents aged 13 – 17 who were attending Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services were asked to complete measures of childhood maltreatment, individual resilience, attachment and psychological distress. Results: Resilience was shown to mediate the relationship between maltreatment and psychological distress. Attachment avoidance was found to mediate the relationship between maltreatment and resilience but not when emotional reactivity was included in the resilience index. Attachment anxiety did not mediate the relationship between maltreatment and resilience, however, maltreatment history was found to moderate the relationship between attachment anxiety and resilience. Discussion: Generalisability of this study was limited due to possible bias within the recruited sample. Implications of the significant results are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

xv, 238 p. : ill. / This dissertation study is an examination of childhood contextual factors that contributed to adolescent resilient outcomes among children who experienced interparental violence (IPV). More specifically, the study examined the degree to which verbal ability, temperament, behavior problems, parenting quality, parent-child conflict, IPV, and parent's perceived support in childhood account for variance in behavioral problems, self-efficacy, and parenting received in adolescence. The present study addresses gaps in IPV and resilience literature in the following ways: (a) Few studies have focused on adaptive outcomes of children who experienced IPV; (b) little is known about which contextual factors are most important in facilitating resilient outcomes for this population; (c) factors beyond the microsystem were included as predictors; and (d) little is known about the early predictors of general self-efficacy (a defining attribute of resilience) and parenting (a protective factor that facilitates resilience) for the present population. The sample was derived from an existing data set from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. This is a longitudinal data set using a nonclinical, randomly selected sample. Using regression models to test whether childhood ecological factors could predict adolescent outcomes, the study had four primary findings. First, childhood (Wave 1) emotionality temperament predicted childhood internalizing problems, which predicted adolescent (Wave 3) internalizing problems. Second, childhood emotionality and parenting quality predicted childhood externalizing problems, which predicted adolescent externalizing problems. Third, none of the childhood variables were strong predictors of adolescent general self-efficacy. Lastly, parenting quality in childhood predicted parental monitoring in adolescence; however, none of the study variables were strong predictors of parenting quality in childhood. Results are discussed in the context of varying adolescent outcomes and the larger literature on IPV. The study highlights directions for future research, including the need to further examine protective processes among children survivors of IPV. / Committee in charge: Dr. Krista M. Chronister, Chair; Dr. Ellen H. McWhirter, Member; Dr. Jeffrey L. Todahl, Member; Dr. Philip A. Fisher, Outside Member

I studien undersöktes huruvida resiliensstärkande faktorer påverkar relationen mellan traumaupplevelser (PTH) och traumasymtom hos svenska ungdomar 15–17 år, relativt individuella traumaupplevelser. Med studien avsågs också påbörja en validering av instrumentet Adolescent Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ) för målgruppen.I urvalet ingick 650 elever och totalt sample för databearbetning var 616 personer, 47.9% flickor, 51.8% pojkar och 0.3% annan könsidentitet.Studien fann inte stöd för att resiliens mätt med ARQ eller anknytningsstil mätt med Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) modererar effekten av PTH på traumasymtom, vilket ej går i linje med fynd från tidigare forskning. Resultat från studiens enkla regressionsanalyser indikerade dock att hög grad av resiliens och trygg anknytningsstil predicerar låg grad av traumasymtom, vilket lånar vikt till att det finns tydliga kopplingar mellan resiliens och utvecklandet av traumasymtom.Inga signifikanta könsskillnader avseende PTH framkom, men signifikanta skillnader med måttlig effekt återfanns avseende traumasymtom och resiliensstärkande faktorer. Pojkar uppvisade fler resiliensstärkande faktorer, medan flickor uppvisade fler traumasymtom, vilket går i linje med tidigare forskning.Undersökning av den interna strukturen i ARQ genomfördes med en konfirmatorisk faktorsanalys, där föreliggande studie finner bristande passform vid användandet av ARQ i en svensk kontext. Författarna uppmanar framtida forskare att vidare utforska och anpassa ARQ till en svensk normgrupp.