Resilience and Time Perspective in a Clinical Sample of Adolescents

Background/Objectives: Time perspective and resilience are both relevant to adolescent mental health, yet their association has rarely been examined in clinical adolescent populations. This study investigated associations between resilience and time perspective and tested their independent associations with depressive, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms beyond trauma-related variables. Methods: A total of 105 adolescents aged 14 to 20 years were recruited from a child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient department. Participants completed self-report measures of resilience, time perspective, trauma exposure, and PTSD, depressive, and anxiety symptoms. Discrepancy from the optimal balanced time-perspective profile was quantified using the revised Deviation from a Balanced Time Perspective coefficient (DBTP-r). Spearman correlations and linear regression models were computed using DBTP-r alone, DBTP-r plus resilience, and extended models including trauma-related variables. Results: Higher DBTP-r was associated with lower resilience. Higher resilience was associated with higher Future and Past Positive scores and lower Past Negative scores. DBTP-r accounted for substantial variance in symptom severity. When resilience was added, both DBTP-r and resilience were independently associated with depressive, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms. In the extended models, DBTP-r and resilience remained significant for all three outcomes. Of the trauma-related predictors, physical sexual abuse was associated with PTSD symptoms in the extended model, but this association was no longer significant after controlling for biological sex. The cumulative number of other potentially traumatic experiences was not independently associated with symptom severity in the extended models. Conclusions: Time perspective and resilience appear to be related but distinguishable constructs. Both were independently associated with symptom levels of depression, anxiety, and PTSD in adolescents.