Parents' adjustment following the death of their child: Resilience is multidimensional and differs across outcomes examined

- A multidimensional approach to examining resilience to major life stressors is proposed.
- Findings showed that resilience to child loss is multidimensional, differing based on outcome.
- Social resources were the strongest predictors of resilience to child loss.
- Resilience is shown to be not as commonplace as discussed in the literature.

We examine whether the previously reported commonness of resilience to significant adversity extends to parents' death of a child. To examine our research questions, we apply growth mixture models to longitudinal data from 461 parents in the HILDA study who had experienced child loss. The proportion of parents manifesting resilience were 44%, 56%, 21%, 32%, and 16% for life satisfaction, negative affect, positive affect, general health, and physical functioning, respectively. Only 5% were resilient across all five indices, whereas 28% did not show a resilient trajectory across all outcomes. Social connectedness, anticipating comfort when distressed, and everyday role functioning were the strongest predictors of resilient adaptation. Findings underscore that resilience is not a unidimensional construct.Words: 115.