Therapy, Anxiety, and Social Support: The Role of Resilience in an Irish Population

Casey, Laurie (2025) Therapy, Anxiety, and Social Support: The Role of Resilience in an Irish Population. Undergraduate thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Resilience and social support have been found to be protective factors that mitigate against anxiety severity, and therapy is a known practice for reducing anxiety symptomology, There is a lack of generalizable research on how resilience and social support may influence anxiety levels in people who have attended therapy in comparison to those that never attended therapy, controlling for age and gender differences, applying a novel approach of exploring therapy as a moderator. A sample of 134 participants completed a survey containing the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). Moderated Hierarchical Multiple Regression. Block 2 significantly predicted anxiety, with this step explaining 21.8% variance resilience with resilience being the strongest predictor (β = -.286, p = <.001) that significantly lowered anxiety. Block 3 only explained 1.9% of variance. Findings suggest that independent of moderation effects, therapy attendance, resilience and perceived social support directly reduce anxiety, which suggests that increasing one’s resilience might be a primary clinical strategy for managing anxiety. This may be done by implementing resilience focused interventions in primary care settings for those who seek therapy for anxiety.

Item Type:	Thesis (Undergraduate)
Supervisors:	Name Email Fox, Robert UNSPECIFIED
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain > Ireland R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA790 Mental Health
Divisions:	School of Business (- 2025) > BA (Honours) in Psychology
Depositing User:	Ciara O'Brien
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2025 11:16
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2025 11:16
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/8880

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