Self-Perceived Resilience In U.S. Service Members During Entry-level Training

PURPOSE: To describe self-perceived resilience (SPR) in recently enlisted service members (SM) upon entry into a three-month secondary training (ST) course and to investigate the associations between SPR and graduation from ST. METHODS: Male enlisted SM (N = 858, age = 19.7 ± 1.75 years) were surveyed upon entry into ST. SPR was assessed with the question: “Do you consider yourself a resilient person (able to bounce back after stressful events)?” Subjects selected one of four responses: rarely, sometimes, very often and almost always. To simplify responses we collapsed responses into two categories: low SPR (rarely and sometimes) and high SPR (very often and almost always). Graduation outcomes, assessed via existing training records, were considered on-time if training was completed without any delays on the first attempt. Counts and percentages were evaluated with contingency tables. Fisher’s exact and Pearson Chi-squared tests with odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to assess associations between SPR and both overall graduation and on-time graduation, respectively. RESULTS: The majority of subjects reported high SPR (92%; n = 792/858); 8% (n = 66/858) reported low SPR. There was a significant association between SPR and overall graduation (Fisher’s exact test p = 0.02; High SPR: Graduated = 98% [n = 775/792], Did Not Graduate = 2% [n = 17/792]; Low SPR: Graduated = 92% [n = 61/66], Did Not Graduate = 8% [n = 5/66]). Subjects who had low SPR were at greater odds of not graduating (OR = 3.7, 95%CI = 1.33-10.47) compared to those with high SPR. There was a significant association between SPR and on-time graduation (X2 = 9.8, p = 0.002; High SPR: On-time graduation = 86% [n = 663/775], Delayed graduation = 14% [n = 112/775], Low SPR: On-time graduation = 70% [n = 43/61]; Delayed graduation = 30% [n = 18/61]). Those with low SPR were also at greater odds of delayed graduation (OR = 2.5, 95%CI = 1.4-4.5) compared to those with high SPR. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show SM entering ST with low SPR have nearly 4 times greater odds of not graduating from ST overall and 2.5 times greater odds of delayed graduation compared to those entering with high SPR. Future studies should incorporate how resilience along with additional factors such as injury, race, marital status and education affect graduation from secondary training.