Resilience trajectories among forensic healthcare workers: the influence of psychosocial factors

Forensic healthcare workers (FHWs) are frequently exposed to high emotional demands, aggressive patient behaviour and external stressors, making resilience essential for managing their roles effectively. While resilience is widely recognised as a protective factor against burnout and mental health problems, little is known about how it develops and changes over time within the forensic care context. To address this, the present longitudinal study examined the development of resilience in FHWs across the Netherlands and Belgium over one year, with data collected at four measurements (N = 345 baseline, 72.8% female). Using multilevel modelling, we examined how emotional workload, COVID-19 fear, social support and wellbeing predicted changes in resilience, controlling for age, gender and patient contact hours. Although no significant average change in resilience was found over time, substantial individual variability emerged. Follow-up analyses using latent class growth analysis (LCGA) identified six distinct resilience trajectories. Wellbeing and social support consistently predicted membership in higher resilience classes, while COVID-19 fear was associated with low and decreasing resilience. Notably, emotional workload did not significantly impact resilience levels or their trajectories. These findings suggest that enhancing positive resources, such as supportive relationships and employee wellbeing, may be more effective in fostering resilience than efforts focused solely on reducing negative stressors.