Moderating effects of resilience on depression in individuals with a history of childhood abuse or trauma exposure
Open accessAbstract
Background Influences of resilience on the presence and severity of depression following trauma exposure are largely unknown. Hence, we examined effects of resilience on depressive symptom severity in individuals with past childhood abuse and/or other trauma exposure. Methods In this cross-sectional study of 792 adults, resilience was measured with the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, depression with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), childhood abuse with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and other traumas with the Trauma Events Inventory. Results Multiple linear regression modeling with depression severity (BDI score) as the outcome yielded 4 factors: childhood abuse (β=2.5, p<0.0001), other trauma (β=3.5, p<0.0001), resilience (β=-0.5, p<0.0001), and other trauma × resilience interaction term (β=-0.1, p=0.0021), all of which were significantly associated with depression severity, even after adjusting for age, sex, race, education, employment, income, marital status, and family psychiatric history. Childhood abuse and trauma exposure contributed to depressive symptom severity while resilience mitigated it. Conclusions Resilience moderates depressive symptom severity in individuals exposed to childhood abuse or other traumas both as a main effect and an interaction with trauma exposure. Resilience may be amenable to external manipulation and could present a potential focus for treatments and interventions.
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Resilience is negatively correlated with anxiety and depression, suggesting it may protect against these conditions by buffering risk factors.
“Research shows resilience is negatively correlated with anxiety and depression,, suggesting it may protect against these conditions by buffering risk factors [37–43].”
From The prospective association of adolescent loneliness and low resilience with anxiety and depression in young adulthood: The HUNT study (2025) · cites this paper as [37]
The Results report that higher resilience was associated with lower depressive symptom severity and moderated the association between other trauma exposure and depression. The study examined depression in a highly traumatized population; it does not report a resilience–anxiety correlation or show that resilience buffers risk factors for anxiety. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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References 18 · Cited by 376
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- Authors
- Wingo, A. P., Wrenn, G., Pelletier, T., Gutman, A. R., Bradley, B., & Ressler, K. J.
- Affiliations
- Emory University (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ressler, Kerry J.
- Venue
- Journal of Affective Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-11
- Volume
- 126
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 411-414
- ISSN
- 0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3606050
- OpenAlex
- W2171340543
- Cited by
- 376
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 11.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000454)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 071537, R01MH071537, R56MH071537)
- National Center for Research Resources (M01-RR00039, UL1RR025008, M01RR000039, UL RR025008)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Keywords
- resilience, depression, childhood abuse, trauma exposure, moderating effect, depression severity, resilience interventions
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Child, Child Abuse, Cross-Sectional Studies, Major Depressive Disorder, Depressive Disorder, Major, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Middle Aged, Personality Inventory, Pregnancy, Socioeconomic Factors, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Black People, White People, Resilience, Psychological, Young Adult
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