Resilience statistics

Resilience is not a diagnosis or a condition. It is a way of describing how people respond to a hard or frightening event, and researchers measure it in more than one way.

Some studies follow the same people over months or years and sort them into groups by how their symptoms change. In a resilience trajectory, symptoms stay low over time. In a recovery trajectory, symptoms start high and then ease. A chronic trajectory stays high, and a delayed trajectory starts low and rises later.

Other studies test training programmes. They report an effect size, which compares people who took part with people in a control group. An effect size is not a share of people. Each figure below names its group, its measure and its source.

Trauma and PTSD worldwide

The World Mental Health Surveys asked adults in many countries about traumatic events and PTSD, using the same diagnostic interview.

• Of adults in surveys in 24 countries, 70.4% had lived through at least one traumatic event. (survey, lifetime (ever), 2001-2012 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ¹
• Among adults who had lived through a traumatic event, in 26 surveys across 24 countries, 5.6% had PTSD at some point in their lives. (survey, lifetime (ever), 2001-2012 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ²

Patterns over time after a traumatic event

This review pooled studies that followed people over time after a potentially traumatic event. Its figure is an average across very different groups and events.

• A review of studies that followed people over time after a potentially traumatic event found that, on average, 65.7% followed a resilience trajectory, the most common response. (pooled from cohort studies, published 2018, checked 10 Oct 2026) ³

North America

These figures come from responders to the World Trade Center attacks who took part in a health programme. They describe those responders, not the whole country.

• In the United States, 77.8% of police officers who responded to the World Trade Center attacks followed a resistant or resilient trajectory of PTSD symptoms, assessed on average three, six and eight years later. (published 2013, year not stated, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁵
• In the United States, 58.0% of non-traditional responders to the World Trade Center attacks, such as construction workers, followed a resistant or resilient trajectory of PTSD symptoms. (published 2013, year not stated, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁵

Europe

This study followed Danish soldiers with a symptom questionnaire before, during and after a deployment to Afghanistan. It analysed only soldiers with symptom scores from before, during and after deployment, not every soldier deployed.

• In Denmark, 84% of the soldiers analysed in a study of a deployment to Afghanistan in 2009 fell into two resilient groups, with low PTSD symptoms that did not change across the measurements. (2009 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁶

Middle East

This study interviewed a national sample of adults in Israel twice during a period of terrorist and rocket attacks. It counted symptoms of traumatic stress and depression, not diagnoses. Its authors used the word resistance for few or no symptoms throughout, and resilience for early symptoms that later eased.

• In Israel, 22.1% of Jewish and Arab adults in a national sample, interviewed twice during attacks in 2004-2005, had few or no symptoms of traumatic stress or depression both times. (survey, 2004-2005 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁷
• In Israel, 54.0% of Jewish and Arab adults in a national sample, interviewed twice during attacks in 2004-2005, followed a chronic distress trajectory. (survey, 2004-2005 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁷

Africa

This study followed adults treated for injuries at one public hospital in Nairobi. It tracked symptoms of depression and anxiety, not PTSD.

• In Kenya, 87% of adult injury patients at a Nairobi hospital, recruited in 2015, followed a trajectory of low depressive and anxiety symptoms up to seven months after discharge. (2015 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁸

Asia

This study followed a convenience sample of school children after the Wenchuan earthquake in China. It describes those children, not the whole country.

• In China, 74.9% of children assessed five times over four years after the Wenchuan earthquake followed a resilient trajectory of PTSD symptoms. (2008-2012 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁹

Oceania

This study followed injury patients admitted to hospitals in three Australian states, and assessed PTSD with a clinical interview.

• In Australia, 73% of injury patients admitted to hospital, recruited in 2004-2006 and followed for six years, showed a resilient trajectory of PTSD symptoms. (2004-2006 data, checked 10 Oct 2026) ¹⁰

Resilience training

These reviews pooled trials that compared people given resilience training with control groups. Each result is a standardised mean difference. A positive value means higher resilience scores than the control group. For depression, a negative value means fewer symptoms.

• Across controlled trials of resilience training, people who took part scored higher on resilience scales at the end of training than people in control groups, a moderate effect (standardised mean difference 0.44). (meta-analysis of trials, published 2018, checked 10 Oct 2026) ⁴
• Healthcare professionals given resilience training may report higher resilience than controls just after training (standardised mean difference 0.45), but the review rated this evidence as very low certainty. (meta-analysis of trials, published 2020, checked 10 Oct 2026) ¹¹
• Healthcare professionals given resilience training may report lower levels of depression than controls just after training (standardised mean difference -0.29), with evidence of very low certainty. (meta-analysis of trials, published 2020, checked 10 Oct 2026) ¹¹
• In trials of school resilience programmes, adolescents gained resilience compared with controls (standardised mean difference 0.58); split by population, the effect was significant only in adolescents at risk. (meta-analysis of trials, published 2023, checked 10 Oct 2026) ¹²

Studies side by side

These studies followed different groups after different events, for different lengths of time, with different measures. Read each row with its label, and do not rank the countries.

How to read these figures

A trajectory share describes one group after one kind of event. The review of trajectory studies found that the shares differed mainly because the groups studied differed.

Studies do not all use the same words. One study's resilience group can match another study's resistance group, so read each figure's own description.

A resilience trajectory means that measured symptoms stayed low at each assessment. Most of the country studies on this page measured PTSD symptoms only.

An effect size compares a trained group with a control group. It is not a share of people, and it does not show how long a benefit lasts.

If a hard event is still affecting you, talking to a therapist can help. For PTSD, the World Health Organization names psychological treatments as the first choice, with the most evidence for trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). Our guide on how to find the right therapist explains what to look for. If you are in distress right now, see our helplines and suicide hotlines worldwide.

Cite this page: TherapyRoute. Resilience statistics. https://www.therapyroute.com/article/resilience-2025-statistics-by-therapyroute. Last updated 10 October 2026.

References

1. [1] Trauma and PTSD in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. European Journal of Psychotraumatology (Kessler et al.), 2017 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
2. [2] Posttraumatic stress disorder in the World Mental Health Surveys. Psychological Medicine (Koenen et al.), 2017 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
3. [3] Trajectories of resilience and dysfunction following potential trauma: A review and statistical evaluation. Clinical Psychology Review (Galatzer-Levy, Huang and Bonanno), 2018 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
4. [4] Road to resilience: a systematic review and meta-analysis of resilience training programmes and interventions. BMJ Open (Joyce et al.), 2018 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
5. [5] Trajectories of PTSD risk and resilience in World Trade Center responders: an 8-year prospective cohort study. Psychological Medicine (Pietrzak et al.), 2013 cambridge.org.
6. [6] Peace and War: Trajectories of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Before, During, and After Military Deployment in Afghanistan. Psychological Science (Berntsen et al.), 2012 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
7. [7] Trajectories of resilience, resistance, and distress during ongoing terrorism: the case of Jews and Arabs in Israel. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Hobfoll et al.), 2009 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
8. [8] Longitudinal Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms of Adult Injury Patients in Kenya and their Risk Factors. Disability and Rehabilitation (Hung et al.), 2019 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
9. [9] Trajectories of posttraumatic stress disorders among children after the Wenchuan earthquake: a four-year longitudinal study. European Journal of Psychotraumatology (Liang et al.), 2019 pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
10. [10] Trajectory of post-traumatic stress following traumatic injury: 6-year follow-up. British Journal of Psychiatry (Bryant et al.), 2015 cambridge.org.
11. [11] Psychological interventions to foster resilience in healthcare professionals. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Kunzler et al.), 2020 cochranelibrary.com.
12. [12] Effectiveness of resilience-based interventions in schools for adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology (Llistosella et al.), 2023 frontiersin.org.