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Review
. 2024 Aug 27;16(8):e67897.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.67897. eCollection 2024 Aug.

Demographic, Environmental, and Psychosocial Influences on Resilience Toward Chronic Stress

Samantha Johnson  1 , Laura Tunison  1 , Nidhi Thiruppathi  1 , Nicole Humphries  1 , Ibolja Cernak  2
Affiliations
Review

Demographic, Environmental, and Psychosocial Influences on Resilience Toward Chronic Stress

Samantha Johnson et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

As studied previously, chronic stress environments lead to the formation of distinctive resilience groupings when related to individual outcomes among participants. The majority of the population has decreased mental and physical strength during prolonged periods of mental distress but returns to baseline status when those stressors are removed. Others have increased and decreased mental fortitude despite the removal of stressors. Our hypothesis is that certain demographic, environmental, and/or transgenerational aspects are associated with resilience or lack thereof in populations with a history of chronic stress. The end goal is the early identification of at-risk populations to decrease adverse outcomes and improve quality of life. In this review, we looked at 17 studies to gain a greater understanding of which factors influence individual resilience. The factors found to have a positive relationship with resilience were religion, cognitive function, socioeconomic status, marriage, psychological functioning, positive coping mechanisms, and relationships; the negative were medical diagnoses, violence exposure, female sex, stressors/trauma, disaster exposure, and negative coping mechanisms. During our research, we found that transgenerational aspects such as race/ethnicity, occupation, education, age, substance use, and physical location had mixed results across multiple studies. These findings suggest the need for future original research to allow for a definitive understanding of populations resilient to chronic stress.

Keywords: demographic risk factors; environmental risk factors; psychological resilience; psychosocial risk factors; resiliency; stress coping; stress response; wellness and resilience.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for reviews
PRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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