Resilience of sub-Saharan children and adolescents: A scoping review

Abstract

The population of sub-Saharan children and adolescents is substantial and growing. Even though most of this population is vulnerable, there is no comprehensive understanding of the social-ecological factors that could be leveraged by mental health practitioners to support their resilience. The present study undertakes a narrative scoping review of empirical research (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) on the resilience of children and adolescents living in sub-Saharan Africa to determine what enables their resilience and what may be distinctive about African pathways of child and adolescent resilience. Online databases were used to identify full-text, peer-reviewed papers published 2000–2018, from which we selected 59 publications detailing the resilience of children and/or adolescents living in 18 sub-Saharan countries. Studies show that the resilience of sub-Saharan children and adolescents is a complex, social-ecological process supported by relational, personal, structural, cultural, and/or spiritual resilience-enablers, as well as disregard for values or practices that could constrain resilience. The results support two insights that have implications for how mental health practitioners facilitate the resilience of sub-Saharan children and adolescents: (i) relational and personal supports matter more-or-less equally; and (ii) the capacity for positive adjustment is complexly interwoven with African ways-of-being and -doing.