title: Early-life predictors of resilience and related outcomes up to 66 years later in the 6-day sample of the 1947 Scottish mental survey.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Psychological resilience, the ability to manage and quickly recover from stress and trauma, is associated with a range of health and wellbeing outcomes. Resilience is known to relate to personality, self-esteem and positive affect, and may also depend upon childhood experience and stress. In this study, we investigated the role of early-life contributors to resilience and related factors in later life.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used data from the 6-day sample of the Scottish mental survey 1947, an initially representative sample of Scottish children born in 1936. They were assessed on a range of factors between the ages of 11 and 27 years, and resilience and other outcomes at 77 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Higher adolescent dependability unexpectedly predicted lower resilience in older-age, as did childhood illnesses, while a count of specific stressors experienced throughout early life significantly predicted higher later-life resilience. We also observed significant cross-sectional correlations between resilience and measures of physical health, mental health, wellbeing and loneliness. Some of the associations between early-life predictors and later-life outcomes were significantly mediated by resilience.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results support the hypothesis that stress throughout early life may help to build resilience in later-life, and demonstrate the importance of resilience as a mediator of other influences on health and wellbeing in older age. We suggest that the mechanisms determining how early-life stress leads to higher resilience are worthy of further investigation, and that psychological resilience should be a focus of research and a target for therapeutic interventions aiming to improve older-age health and wellbeing.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK. mat.harris@ed.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Mathew A
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1135-4141
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK.
authors.forename: Caroline E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Brett
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK.|Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Starr
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK.
authors.forename: Ian J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Deary
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK.|Division of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: McIntosh
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002605:Character; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012606:Scotland; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: 6-day sample; Early-life stress; Health and wellbeing; Personality; Resilience