Stress-Related Growth: Correlates and Change Following a Resilience Intervention

Correlates of stress-related growth and the effectiveness of a resilience intervention to enhance stress-related growth were examined. College students were randomly assigned to intervention (n=31) and wait-list control (n=33) groups. The intervention group received the psychoeducational intervention, Transforming Lives Through Resilience Education, in four weekly two-hour sessions. Measures of personal, environmental, and stressor characteristics, coping strategies, adjustment, and stress-related growth were assessed. Multiple regressions revealed that pre-intervention self-esteem, self-leadership, hopeful coping, and depressive symptoms significantly related to pre-intervention growth. A repeated measures ANOVA yielded a significant group by time interaction for total growth; the intervention group showed greater increases in growth pre- to post-intervention compared to the control group. Our results support the relationships of self-esteem and adaptive coping strategies to stress-related growth and introduce a new correlate of growth, self-leadership, to the literature. In addition, our results highlight the complex role depressive symptoms may play in relation to growth, indicating that depressive symptoms may decrease one’s inner resources while simultaneously serving as a catalyst for growth. Further, the findings support the resilience intervention as a promising approach to facilitate growth.

Dolbier, C. L., Smith Jaggars, S. E., & Steinhardt, M. A. (2009). Stress-related growth: Correlates and positive change following a resilience intervention. Stress and Health (Published online November 6, 2009; print volume forthcoming). Download PDF

 

 

 

 

A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.
~Hans Selye