Resilience and its correlates in patients with narcolepsy type 1.

STUDY

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to explore resilience and its possible association with sociodemographic and clinical features in patients with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1).

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional study involving patients with NT1 and age-/sex-matched controls (comparison group). Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected through semistructured interviews and validated questionnaires, including the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)-State Anxiety, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), 36-item Short Form Survey (SF-36), and the Resilience Scale (RS). Different statistical approaches were used to investigate the relationship between resilience and NT1 and associations with sociodemographic and clinical features.

RESULTS

The participants comprised 137 patients (mean age, 38.0 years; 52.6% female) and 149 controls (39.6 years; 55.7% female). Compared with controls, patients had a significantly lower (122.6 vs 135.5) mean RS score and a 2-fold risk of having low/mild-range resilience (adjusted odds ratio = 1.99, 95% confidence interval 1.13-3.52). Patients with high resilience had sociodemographic and narcolepsy characteristics similar to patients with low resilience, but they reported anxiety and depressive symptomatology less frequently (4.2% vs 55.8% and 58.3%, respectively), and their SF-36 scores were comparable to those of the comparison group. In patients, RS score was strongly associated with STAI-State Anxiety and BDI (rho = -0.57 and -0.56, respectively) and weakly with ESS (rho = -20) scores.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study suggest that resilience may play a key role in patients' adaptation to NT1. Furthermore, this study supports interventions aimed at increasing patients' resilience and provides a base for further studies, preferably longitudinal and including objective measures, directed toward understanding the relationship between resilience, depression, and quality of life in patients with narcolepsy.

CITATION: D'Alterio A, Menchetti M, Zenesini C, et al. Resilience and its correlates in patients with narcolepsy type 1. J Clin Sleep Med. 2023;19(4):719-726.