Figure 3.

Design of resilience studies amid disruptive events.

The figure illustrates a schedule of assessments for studying resilience as a positive outcome in the context of one or many individual-level acute or chronic stressors. Based on the findings of our summary, this schedule might also be used to study mental distress responses in the face of future global disruptive events (e.g., pandemics or natural disasters). Specifically, the lessons learned from the pandemic indicate the need to frequently measure both multidimensional functioning and stressor exposure. Based on these data, future resilience research may be able to adopt state-of-the-art concepts of resilience as a positive outcome by mapping changes in multidimensional functioning controlled for interindividual differences in stressor exposure (see ‘stressor reactivity’ in Box 2 in the main text). Here, we propose to use a broader definition of resilient outcomes, including not only psychosocial functioning, but also physical functioning to account for the multidimensionality of gains and losses in different domains across the lifespan. Moreover, we suggest using high-frequency assessments of resilience factors (predictors) and resilience mechanisms (mediators). To increase the generalizability of results and to draw conclusions on medium- and long-term mental health consequences of disruptive events, we propose initiating international population-based (ideally representative) studies on public mental health, starting now and being maintained over many years. These studies may help to collect pre-stressor data, which are essential to fully understand resilience processes.