Editing Mental Health and Psychosocial Nursing (section)

=== Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Resilience ===
Mental health is not the absence of symptoms. It is the capacity to form satisfying relationships, adapt to change, tolerate distress, and function in expected roles. Mental illness is diagnosed when a pattern of thought, mood, or behavior causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important functioning, and is not merely an expectable response to a common stressor (American Psychiatric Association, 2022).

Resilience, the ability to recover functioning after adversity, is a protective factor the nurse actively strengthens. Protective factors include social support, employment, stable housing, spiritual or cultural connection, problem-solving skill, and treatment adherence. Risk factors include isolation, substance use, trauma history, chronic pain, recent loss, and access to lethal means.