TITLE:
Resilience and Chronic Disease: What’s New?
AUTHORS:
Lis de Moura Ribeiro de Sá, Danton Ferraz Sousa, Maria Eugênia Glustak, Sílvia Fernanda Lima de Moura Cal
KEYWORDS:
Resilience, Chronic Diseases, Lifestyle, Stress, Integrative Review
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.16 No.11,
November
21,
2025
ABSTRACT: Resilience (RS), defined as the ability to achieve or recover physical or emotional health after a devastating illness, has the potential to reduce the intensity of stress, anxiety, and depression, which are common in chronic illness. This research consists of an update of the most recent articles released after the authors’ previous publication (2015) on the same theme. The aim of this study was to conduct an integrative review of the impacts of resilience on chronic illness over the last 8 years (2013-2021). An exploratory search was conducted on databases such as PubMed, BVS (Scielo and Lilacs), and PsycInfo, using the keywords “resilience”, “chronic disease”, “resiliência”, and “doença crônica”. Ten articles that met the inclusion criteria were identified. The studies showed that higher levels of RS favor the use of adaptive strategies such as acceptance and positive reappraisal, while lower RS is associated with worse outcomes regarding pain and overall health. New studies also investigate epigenetics, which studies the influence of life experiences on the activity of our genes, impacting how we deal with situations and whether we develop diseases or not; therefore, experience determines how genetic potential will be expressed. Stress has been considered a pathogenic factor, including both acute stress and stress from daily life, as well as stress experienced during development leading to so-called developmental trauma.