Demographics, Military Status, and Physical Health as Indicators of Personal Resilience Among U.S. Active Duty Service Members and Veterans

Personal resilience refers to the ability to constructively adjust and move forward with ones’ life following tragic events or situations. However, few studies have examined the characteristics of highly resilient active duty military or veterans. This study examined the relationships between personal resiliency scores (The Resiliency Scale), demographics, general Self-Reported Health (SRH), and health symptomatology (Patient Health Questionnaire-15) among 263 U.S. active duty and veteran service members. Pearson Product-Moment Correlations, an Analysis of Variance, and Regression Analysis were used with a significance level of 0.05. Results showed that active duty service members were more resilient than the veterans in this population (p < 0.05). Findings also demonstrated that a higher education level, longer time on active duty, higher SRH, and lower symptomology were correlated with (p < 0.05) and contributed to greater resilience [F(4, 258) = 26.18, p < 0.01), R² = 0.54]. These results demonstrate the importance of health and education, perhaps pointing toward a protective qualities that may also include longer service time.