title: Mental resilience, perceived immune functioning, and health.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mental resilience can be seen as a trait that enables an individual to recover from stress and to face the next stressor with optimism. People with resilient traits are considered to have a better mental and physical health. However, there are limited data available assessing the relationship between resilient individuals and their perspective of their health and immune status. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the relationship between mental resilience, perceived health, and perceived immune status.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 779 participants recruited at Utrecht University completed a questionnaire consisting of demographic characteristics, the brief resilience scale for the assessment of mental resilience, the immune function questionnaire (IFQ), and questions regarding their perceived health and immune status.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When correcting for gender, age, height, weight, smoker status, amount of cigarettes smoked per week, alcohol consumption status, amount of drinks consumed per week, drug use, and frequency of past year drug use, mental resilience was significantly correlated with perceived health (r=0.233,p=0.0001), perceived immune functioning (r=0.124,p=0.002), and IFQ score (r=-0.185,p=0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A significant, albeit modest, relationship was found between mental resilience and perceived immune functioning and health.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marith
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Van Schrojenstein Lantman
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marlou
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mackus
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Leila S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Otten
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: de Kruijff
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Aurora Jae
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: van de Loo
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Aletta D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Kraneveld
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Nutricia Research, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garssen
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Joris C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Verster
keywords: health; immune functioning; mental resilience; quality of life; vitality