Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Abstract #290
Resilience, Posttraumatic Growth and Positive Emotions in Parents of Critically Ill Children
Presenter: Rocío Rodríguez-Rey Co - Presenter: Jesús Alonso-Tapia
Abstract:
Research on parental psychological effects related to a child’s critical illness has focused on studying negative outcomes; however, the positive outcomes have been overlooked. So, our aims were to study 1) the level of resilience, positive emotions, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) in parents of critically ill children and 2) which factors predict PTG after a child’s discharge from intensive care.A total of 143 parents were assessed 48h after the child’s discharge from intensive care, and 6 months later. Repeated Measures ANOVA and confirmatory regression analyses were conducted.Parents experienced twice more positive than negative emotions during admission, being gratitude and love the most prevalent ones. A high percentage of parents (60.84%) reported PTG. Resilience predicted 40% of the variance in PTG reported 6 months after the discharge, but this relation was mediated by positive emotions and stress (X2/df =1.67; GFI=.80; CFI=.84; IFI=.85; RMSEA=.069). The model showed that the higher was the difficulty of the situation, the higher the level of PTG reported. Not only distress, but also positive outcomes should be addressed when the effect of a traumatic experience is studied. This will led us to design interventions that takes into account not only psychopathology, but also positive changes.