To evaluate the relationship of resilience (i.e., resistance to stressors) to disease outcomes in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

Resilience has been positively associated with quality of life and social satisfaction in MS patients. A few studies have investigated the relationship between resilience and physical disease outcomes, but research examining potential differences between White and Black patients is sparse. This paucity of knowledge needs to be addressed, as robust research indicates Black patients experience a more severe disease course than White patients.

Black and White patients were equivalent in age, education, disease duration (ps>0.052) and resilience (p=0.873). Black patients tended to fare worse than White patients on EDSS (p=0.090, d=0.40) and TW25 (p=0.094, d=0.39), although not significantly so. However, race moderated the relationship between resilience and EDSS: Among Black patients, partial correlations (accounting for age and time since diagnosis) indicated resilience was significantly correlated to EDSS (r_p=–0.37, p=0.009) and TW25 (r_p=0.43, p=0.004). In contrast, among White patients, partial correlations to EDSS (r_p=0.27, p=0.075) and TW25 (r_p=0.02, p=0.456) showed small effects and were not significant.

Psychological resilience was associated with objective health outcomes in MS patients; however, the relationship was substantially stronger among Black patients than among White patients. Further investigations are necessary to determine the contributing factors and the extent to which this relationship persists longitudinally.