Resilience predicts positive mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in New Yorkers with and without obsessive-compulsive disorder.

ABSTRACT

There has been substantial concern about the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for those with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) given the overlap between OCD symptoms (e.g., excessive handwashing) and appropriate disease prevention measures. However, the pandemic has demonstrated heterogeneous mental health effects, suggesting that individual-level factors could play a role in buffering or exacerbating its deleterious impact. This study aimed to understand how individual differences in resilience were associated with trajectories of obsessive-compulsive, depression, and anxiety symptoms among healthy adults and those with OCD residing in New York City, considered the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States at its onset. The sample consisted of healthy individuals (n = 30) and people with OCD (n = 33) who completed clinical interviews and self-report questionnaires that assessed baseline resilience, OCD symptoms, depression, anxiety, and perceived positive effects of the pandemic at four assessment timepoints baseline (April 2020) and one, two, and six months later. Linear mixed-effects growth models revealed that greater resilience was associated with stable trajectories of symptoms over time. Conversely, less resilience was associated with worsening obsessive-compulsive symptoms from the two-month to six-month assessment timepoints and worsening depressive symptoms at six months across both groups, and with worsening anxiety symptoms in individuals with OCD at six months. Resilience was correlated with the ability to appreciate "silver linings" of the pandemic. These findings highlight resilience as a potential treatment target for bolstering mental health outcomes among individuals with and without psychopathology during sustained and unprecedented periods of stress.