Engagement in Meaningful Activity Mediates the Relationship Between Stressful Life Events and Functional Resilience.

Resilience during stressful life events is a priority for administering the most client-centered care as possible. Occupational therapy practitioners have the unique opportunity to support resilience through promoting meaningful participation. The current study aims to understand the associations between meaningful activity engagement, resilience, and stressful life events. We specifically focused on answering if meaningful participation mediates the relationship between stressful life events and resilience. 492 participants from a non-clinical convenience sample of Amazon's MTurk completed the study. Participants completed an online survey and reported their experiences of stressful life events, resilience, well-being, and meaningful participation. We used SPSS and PROCESS to analyze our data. Stressful event severity and resilience were inversely related. When accounting for the effect of meaningful participation, the relationship became non-significant, indicating evidence of mediation. Implications: Focusing on measuring meaningful participation may be worth studying in further research.

Engagement in Meaningful Activity Mediates the Relationship between Stressful Life Events and Functional ResilienceSupporting recovery both psychologically and physically after a stressful life event is an important aspect of providing client-centered care. By supporting patients' and clients' engagement in meaningful participation, therapists can promote resilient outcomes for all patients and clients. The current study explored the relationship between resilience and meaningful activity participation during stressful life events. The sample was comprised of a convenience sample of 492 participants who were recruited from the online crowdsourcing platform MTurk. The results of the study include that when the stressful life experience was more severe for an individual, they reported lower resilience scores. When meaningful activity participation was accounted for, the relationship between stressful life event severity and resilience became non-existent. The results of the study suggest the importance of using and measuring meaningful activity when supporting recovery after an stressful and adverse life event.

Specialized disaster behavioral health training: Its connection with response, practice, trauma health, and resilience.

This study examined the relationship between having training in key disaster behavioral health (DBH) interventions and trauma health (compassion fatigue, burnout and compassion satisfaction), resilience, the number of crisis responses participated in within the last year, and the frequency of assembling to practice crisis interventions skills. Data was collected from a convenience sample of disaster behavioral health responders (N = 139) attending a training conference in Michigan. Measures included the Professional Quality of Life Scale, the 14-item Resilience Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Point biserial correlations revealed that having training in large and small group crisis interventions and individual and peer crisis interventions was significantly correlated with higher resilience and lower levels of burnout. Psychological First Aid was not significantly associated with any of the trauma health variables or with resilience. Compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction were not significantly associated with DBH training. Chi-square tests for independence found no significant association between key DBH training strategies and the number of crisis responses participated in within the past year and the frequency of assembling to practice crisis interventions skills. These findings suggest that completing training in both, large and small group and individual and peer crisis intervention techniques may help to increase resiliency and reduce burnout among disaster behavioral health providers.

Relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder, resilience, and religious orientation and practices among university student earthquake survivors in Haiti.

This study examined the prevalence of PTSD symptoms; the relationship between PTSD and resilience, religious orientation and religious practices; and how gender is associated with these variables among a volunteer sample of 140 students attending a Christian university in Haiti approximately four months after the January 2010 earthquake. Using the PTSD Checklist-Civilian (PCL-C), the Resilience Scale (RS), and the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) found no significant relationship between PTSD, resilience, religious orientation and religious practices. Results did indicate that 34% of the sample had PCL-C scores indicative of PTSD; female participants had higher PTSD symptoms than males; higher levels of intrinsic religious orientation were associated with more religious practices than extrinsic religious orientation; and males with higher PTSD symptoms were associated with lower levels of attending church-sponsored social events, while females with higher levels of resilience were more associated with church attendance and attending church social events. Mental health providers should develop more comprehensive disaster mental health services that build trust and are culturally sensitive to the post-trauma needs of the Haitian people.