Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the changes in the categories of psychological resilience in the advanced age patients with abortion over time, and to analyze the factors influencing the category transitions. Methods: A purposive sampling method was used to select 210 advanced age patients with abortion who were treated in the gynecology outpatient department of The First People's Hospital of Foshan from February 2024 to February 2025. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Social Support Rating Scale, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and Family APGAR Index were used to conduct follow-up investigation at one week (T1) and six months (T2) after induced abortion. Latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis was employed to explore the latent categories of psychological resilience and the transition probabilities. Multivariate logistic regression was used to investigate the effects of social support, family care, and emotional regulation strategies on the category transitions of psychological resilience. Results: The psychological resilience of the advanced age patients with abortion can be classified into three potential profile categories: the low resilience group, the medium resilience group, and the high resilience group. The proportions of each group at the time points of T1 and T2 were 80.5% and 13.4%, 10.7% and 35.6%, and 8.8% and 51.0% respectively. The results of the latent transition analysis showed that the high resilience group had a 100% probability of remaining in the original group at the time point of T2, indicating the strongest stability; the medium resilience group had the poorest stability, with a 100% probability of transforming to the high resilience group at the time point of T2; the low resilience group had poorer stability, with a 26.3% probability of remaining in the original group and a 73.7% probability of transforming to the medium resilience group at the time point of T2. Multivariate logistic regression showed that social support, family care, and cognitive reappraisal would promote the transformations from low resilience to medium resilience (ORs of 1.306, 2.165, and 1.171, respectively, all P<0.05), and from medium resilience to high resilience (ORs of 1.169, 2.195, and 1.426, respectively, all P<0.05); and that expression inhibition would inhibit the transformations from low resilience to medium resilience, and from medium resilience to high resilience (ORs of 0.862 and 0.889, respectively, both P<0.05). Conclusions: The psychological resilience of advanced age patients who have undergone abortion is poorer in the early postoperative period. Most patients can develop to a higher level of resilience, but there are still some patients with low resilience who have not shown any improvement trend. Clinically, attention should be paid to their psychological state in the early postoperative period. By changing social support, family care, and emotional regulation strategies, the levels of individual psychological resilience can be improved.

Key words: Advanced age, Abortion, Psychological resilience, Latent class analysis, Longitudinal study