Study about resilience of mothers in pediatric intensive care units

Abstract

The experience of accompanying a hospitalized family member in ICU tends to be experienced as a crisis. Studies of Positive Psychology are especially interested in investigating the potential health of each subject that promotes coping and adaptation to crisis situations, in which resilience is highlighted. Although still without a consensual definition, resilience has been recognized as the human ability to overcome crises, confront or be strengthened by adversity. Given the importance of researching this topic, the present study aimed to evaluate the resilience of mothers of children admitted to ICU and investigate its relationship with hope, optimism and pessimism, quality of life and depressed mood. In order to achieve such objective, this study was conducted in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with a total of 18 mothers that answered a self-report protocol designed to the present study. Among the main results, we observed significant correlations between the indices of resilience and hope, between quality of life and optimism, and between quality of life and hope. When comparing the results of the Scales in groups of moderate/severe and minimal/mild depression, contrary to what was expected, the most resilient mothers did not necessarily demonstrate lower levels of depressed mood. In general, higher levels of hope, optimism and quality of life relate negatively with depression, corroborating findings of similar studies.

Keywords: resilience, Pediatric ICU, Positive Psychology.