Patient resilience is a strong predictor of satisfaction after orthopaedic treatment

Abstract

There is a clear inter-relationship between physical and psychological recovery after injuries and surgery.1 Post-traumatic psychological disturbance, mediated by the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis2 may affect a significant minority of patients,1, 3 but the majority of patients are able to cope with a stressful experience, including injury or surgery, by internalizing memories as part of a coping strategy that may be considered as resilience.4 This resilience appears to be in part ‘trait’ (i.e. inherent/fixed) and at least partly ‘state’ (i.e. amenable to change), and is also HPA modulated.2, 3 A better understanding of patient resilience may have wider potential benefits than a narrow focus upon psychopathology.