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: Cross-sectional study involving patients with NT1 and age/sex-matched controls (comparison group). Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected through semi-structured interviews and validated questionnaires, including Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), STAI-State anxiety, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), SF-36, and 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 were 137 patients (mean age, 38.0 years; 52.6% female) and 149 controls (39.6 years; 55.7% female). Compared to controls, patients had a significantly lower (122.6 vs. 135.5) mean RS score and a twofold risk of having low/mild-range resilience (adjusted OR=1.99, 95% CI 1.13-3.52). Patients with high resilience had similar sociodemographic and narcolepsy characteristics of 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 QoL in patients with narcolepsy.