Towards mechanism-focused and scalable resilience interventions

Abstract

Resilience interventions promote mental health by preparing individuals for adversity or building resilient outcomes during or after stress exposure. In this Review, we describe how currently available resilience interventions, focused on training individual psychosocial factors and lacking real-world implementation evidence, yield only small-to-medium favourable effects. Our synthesis of the literature supports a shift in resilience interventions research from training individual factors to training resilience mechanisms, in line with current theories of resilience. The effectiveness and reach of resilience interventions could be enhanced by targeting the mental, physiological and behavioural processes that occur during stressor exposure and by identifying the conditions under which different individuals benefit. We discuss an integrated approach for developing, testing and adapting resilience interventions in real-world settings. Theoretical models of resilience have shifted from a focus on factors to a focus on mechanisms. In this Review, Schäfer et al. discuss concrete pathways for updating resilience interventions to reflect current theories and to enhance their effectiveness.