The Modifying Role of Psychological Resilience in the Relation between Stressful Life Events and Some Indicators of Immunity among Female University Students

The current study aimed to reveal the modifying role of psychological resilience in the relation between stressful life events and some indicators of immunity. The study was conducted on a sample of 35 female university students of some departments of Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, their average age was 20,71 (±0,93). Psychological resilience was measured by Psychological Resilience Scale prepared by Marwa Wassef (2021), and stressful life events were measured by Modified Stressful life events Scale prepared by Shaaban Jaballah, 2020 (Edris,2020), while immunity measured by Immune Function Questionnaire (IFQ) (Reed et al., 2015), and total number of white blood cells (WBCs), and the total number of each type (neutrophils, basophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes). Modified stressful life events scale, psychological resilience scale and immune function questionnaire applied to 35 female university students, while scales of stressful life events and psychological resilience was applied, and measured white blood cells to a subgroup of previous sample (n=22). The results showed that frequency of stressful life events was positively related to weakened immunity function (r=0,3), while the intensity of  stressful life events was not related to it. The intensity of stressful life events was positively related to the numbers of eosinophils (r=0,38). There is no significant correlations between WBCs and the other types of it with both frequency and intensity of stressful life events. There were also no significant correlations between psychological resilience and most of its components with the weakened immune function. The only significance correlation between weakened immune function and perseverance component (r=-0,29). The results support the modifying role of perseverance in the relation between frequency of stressful life events and weakened immune function, the partial correlation between them decreased to non-significant correlation (r=-0,26) when perseverance was excluded. Psychological resilience and its subcomponents was not related to the number of eosinophils. The current results were discussed in the context of  literature about the role of psychological resilience in modifying the relation between stressful life events and immunity.