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REVIEW article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1536553
This article is part of the Research Topic The Intersection of Psychology, Healthy Behaviors, and its Outcomes View all 54 articles

The correlation between resilience and mental health of adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Provisionally accepted
Shulai Luo Shulai Luo Jiangtao Hu Jiangtao Hu Junshuai Zhang Junshuai Zhang Zhengyang Mei Zhengyang Mei Zhongjian Tang Zhongjian Tang Shi Luo Shi Luo *
  • Southwest University, Chongqing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) aged 10–25 exhibit an increased prevalence of mental health disorders. Resilience has been well established as a positive factor in promoting and protecting mental health. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to quantify the correlation between resilience and mental health in AYAs by including relevant observational studies. Additionally, it explored potential moderators such as percentage of female participants, sample regions, and resilience measurements.Methods: A comprehensive search of the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Scopus databases was conducted until September 2024. CMA 3.0 software was used to perform meta-analysis, publication bias and sensitivity analysis of the included studies, and the moderating effect was verified by meta-analysis of variance (ANOVA).Result: Nineteen studies involving a total of 17,746 participants were included, and the summary effect sizes from the random effect model showed that resilience among AYAs had a correlation coefficient of -0.391 with negative indicators of mental health (95% CI: - 0.469, - 0.308, p < 0.001), and a correlation coefficient of 0.499 with positive indicators of mental health (95% CI: 0.400, 0.586, p < 0.001). Additionally, sample regions and resilience measurements significantly moderated the correlation between resilience and positive indicators of mental health. Conclusion: Resilience in AYAs showed a moderately negative correlation with negative indicators of mental health and a moderately strong positive correlation with positive indicators of mental health. The findings strengthened the basis for future resilience research in AYAs aged 10–25, highlighting the potential of resilience to help mitigate the increasing mental health challenges faced by this population.

    Keywords: resilience, Mental Health, adolescents, young adults, Meta-analysis, Correlation

    Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Luo, Hu, Zhang, Mei, Tang and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shi Luo, Southwest University, Chongqing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.