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Ann. psychophysiol. 
ISSN 2412-3188 (Online) | 2410-1354 (Print) 

APP| Published By AEIRC| https://doi.org/10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.71-75 

 
 
Original Article                                                                                  

Role of mothers' resilience in the 
development of resilience and prevention of 
depression and anxiety in daughters 
Zara Nizar Damani  & Sana Hussain  
Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science & Technology, Karachi-Pakistan.   
 

Abstract 
Background: Resilience has proven to be a protective factor against adverse 
conditions. However, mental health professionals have started studying resilience 
in terms of reducing depression and anxiety. In Pakistan especially, this area needs 
to be explored to develop interventions to make people resilient. This study aimed 
to investigate and understand the role of mothers' resilience in developing 
resilience and prevention of depression and anxiety in daughters. 
Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study, and data were collected from 88 
participants hailing from different areas of Karachi, Pakistan, and among them, 44 
were girls, and 44 were their biological mothers. The variables were assessed using 
the resilience and depression anxiety scale. 
Results: The study results reveal that when mothers are resilient, it helps develop 
resilience in daughters. Since there was no significant difference between mothers' 
and daughters' resilience, all the mothers were resilient, and their daughters were 
resilient. Further, this study also showed that resilience is negatively correlated 
with depression and anxiety. Moreover, there was a significant positive 
relationship between mothers' resilience and daughters' depression and anxiety 
scores. Besides this, a significant positive relationship has also been found between 
daughters' resilience and mothers' depression anxiety scores. 
Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is suggested that for the development of a 
healthy society, intervention programs that promote resilience must be adapted 
for children as well as adults so that they can overcome the challenges of daily life. 
 

Keywords 
Resilience, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Depression, Anxiety. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Citation: Damani ZN, Hussain S. Role of 
mothers' resilience in the development of 
resilience and prevention of depression 
and anxiety in daughters. APP. 2021; 8(2): 
71-75 
 
Corresponding Author Email: 
sanpsychologist@gmail.com 
 
DOI: 10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.71-75 
 
Received 08/08/2021 
 
Accepted 06/10/2021 
 
Published 01/12/2021 
 
Copyright © The Author(s). 2021. This is 
an open access article distributed under 
the terms of the Creative Commons 
Attribution 4.0 International License, 
which permits unrestricted use, 
distribution, and reproduction in any 
medium, provided the original author 
and source are credited.  
 

 

Funding: The author(s) received no 
specific funding for this work. 

Conflicts of Interests: The authors have 
declared that no competing interests 
exist. 
 

https://doi.org/10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.71
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1268-8730
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1584-7680
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


 

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Introduction  
Depression and anxiety are the most 
common disorders found among all regions 
of the world. These disorders are significant 
to consider due to their economic and social 
consequences. By 2030, Pakistan will be the 
fifth most populated country; therefore, 
there is a need to develop a strong aid policy 
on dealing with depression and anxiety 
disorders. The prevalence of depression and 
anxiety disorders is higher in Pakistan, with 
higher numbers among rural population 
than to urban. Similar to other countries, 
women in Pakistan have higher rates of 
illness than men1. Mental-health-related 
illnesses are increasing day by day. Children 
go through many changes, socially, 
physically, and mentally. To understand this 
issue, many scholars and public health 
workers have identified the need for 
interventions that promote and develop 
resilience in the early stages of childhood.  
 
Resilience is a learned behavior, and if 
properly addressed according to the age, 
gender, and population being targeted, it 
results in greater preventive effects2. A 
resilient person will   survive despite having 
high levels of emotional and physical stress 
and having severe adversities in life. 
Resilience can be stated as individual 
characteristics that indicate a successful 
functioning in fulfilling social norms and 
personal responsibilities3. Predictors of 
resilience are the child's competence, 
parenting styles, and bond with caregivers. 
Mother-daughter relationship connection 
plays a vital role in increasing resilience4. In 
addition, there is a significant relationship 
between maternal responsiveness and 
family communication in adopting positive 
coping behaviors in children5. Further, the 
acceptance-involvement parenting style 
significantly contributes to the development 
of resilience6. Moreover, parent-child 
communication influences the child's 

emotional wellbeing and emotional 
functioning7. 
 
No such study has been done to identify this 
phenomenon in the Pakistani context. 
Therefore, this study aims to examine the 
role of mothers' resilience in developing 
resilience and prevention of depression and 
anxiety in daughters.  
 

Methodology 
It is a cross-sectional, correlational study, in 
which the participants were recruited 
through purposive sampling and snowball 
sampling.  They were approached through 
social media platforms. Only those 
participants were selected who fulfilled the 
criteria (i.e., mothers between the ages of 30-
40 years with their firstborn biological 
daughters between 13-19 years, and both 
mother and daughters understood the 
English language). After getting verbal 
consent from the participants, they were 
called to a community gathering/social 
gathering. Before conducting the study, 
participants were requested to fill a consent 
form. They were assured that their identities 
would remain anonymous, and data 
gathered from the questionnaire will be used 
only for research purposes. 
 
Along with this, ethical approval was also 
taken from the board of advanced studies 
and doctoral research committee of 
SZABIST, Karachi.  In total, 100 (50 
daughters and 50 mothers) were approached 
to fill the questionnaire and out of which 88 
(44 mothers and 44 daughters) agreed to be 
part of the study. Participants were asked to 
fill a consent form, demographic form, 
Resilience scale8, Depression Anxiety Scale 
(DAS)9. All the scales were in the English 
language, and all the participants 
understood this language. After collecting 
the data, as a token of thanks, a session was 
conducted for the participants to teach them 



 

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some coping strategies to overcome daily life 
stressors. Results were analyzed through 
SPSS version 20.0. To calculate reliabilities of 
the scales, Cronbach alpha was used. The 
correlation was applied to find out the 
relationship between different variables and 
to identify the differences independent t-test 
was administered.  

Result 
The result shows that both the scales are 

having high reliability. The depression, 

anxiety scale (DAS) has 0.94, and resilience 

has a 0.89 reliability coefficient.  

 

Table 1: Alpha reliability of the resilience and depression anxiety scales 

Scales No. of Items Alpha Reliability 
Resilience 14 0.89 

DAS 21 0.94 
 DAS-depression, anxiety scale. 

 

The result shows a significant positive relation (r=0.465; p<0.05) between mothers’ and daughters’ 

resilience. Moreover, it shows a significant positive relation(r=0.516; p<0.01) between daughters' 

resilience and mothers' depression and anxiety levels. Further, there is a significant positive 

relationship (r=0.462; p<0.01) between mothers' resilience and daughters' depression and anxiety 

results. Moreover, a significant negative correlation (r=-0.538; p<0.05) can be seen between 

mothers and daughters' levels of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, the result shows that there 

is a significant negative correlation (r=-0.162; p<0.05) between mothers resilience and mothers 

DAS. Similarly, a significant negative correlation (r=-0.642; p<0.05) can be seen on the table 

between daughters' resilience and daughters DAS scores.  

 

Table 2: Pearson correlation between mother's daughter's resilience and mother,  

daughter's depression, anxiety scale. 

 

Measures Mothers  
Resilience 

Mothers  
DAS 

Daughters 
Resilience 

Daughters  
DAS 

Mothers 
Resilience 

1 -0.162** 0.465** 0.462** 

Mothers 
DAS 

 1 0.516** -0.538** 

Daughters 
Resilience 

  1 -0.642** 

Daughters 
DAS 

   1 

DAS-depression, anxiety scale. 

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level 

 

The result shows the mean difference between mother and daughter scores on resilience and 

DAS. It shows no difference between mother and daughters' scores on both the variables tested 

in the current study (p > 0.05). 

 



 

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Table 3: Difference in the mean DAS and resilience among mothers and daughters.   

 

Variables 
Mothers (n=44) Daughters (n=44) 

95% CI 
t-values 

 Mean±SD 

Resilience 81.81±12.6 83.02±9.94 (-3.626 - 6.035) .496 

DAS 16.95±14.16 15.20±10.13 (-6.976 - 3.476) -.667 
DAS-depression, anxiety scale. 

 

Discussion 
The main objective of the present study was 
to identify the role of mothers' resilience in 
developing resilience and preventing 
depression and anxiety in daughters. The 
present study’s finding suggests that 
resilience plays a significant role in reducing 
depression and anxiety among mothers and 
daughters. In this study, there is a significant 
negative correlation found between the 
depression and anxiety of mothers and 
daughters with their resilience, which 
proves that resilient factors decrease the 
scores of anxieties and depression in an 
individual and promotes wellbeing. 
Recently, a study on footballers suggested 
that resilience was a protective factor against 
anxiety and stress. High resilience and low 
anxiety traits were found to be protective 
factors to improve mental wellbeing10. It can 
be said that resilience impacts on improving 
mental wellbeing and reducing depression 
and anxiety in an individual.   
 
In Pakistani culture, it is usually said that a 
girl's first best friend is her mother. The bond 
they share includes all the other 
relationships, such as friends, caregivers, 
secret keepers. Mothers usually transmit 
their behaviors and beliefs to their children. 
Whether it is good or bad, they endorse 
attitudes in them and influence their 
actions11. The present study also showed that 
daughters' resilience positively correlated 
with mother's anxiety and depression.   
 
Mothers and daughters provide a robust 
support system to each other, especially in 

Pakistani culture. The quality of the 
relationship between mothers and daughters 
determines the later development of the 
daughter. The current study shows a 
positive correlation between mothers’ and 
daughters’ resilience. Moreover, there was 
no difference between mother and 
daughters' resilience which shows if mothers 
are resilient, then daughters can also be 
resilient. This finding shows the importance 
of a mother's role in the emotional 
development of their daughters. On the basis 
of this finding, we can say that if we work on 
a mother's resilience, we can make daughters 
resilient. The connection with mothers 
provides a safe space for children, especially 
daughters, to internalize a positive attitude 
and overcome adversities.  
 
Moreover, the current study also suggests 
that when mothers get depressed, daughters 
become resilient. When daughters show 
depressive or anxiety symptoms, mothers 
tend to get resilient to deal with the situation. 
There was a positive correlation found 
between daughters' depression, anxiety 
score and mother's resilience. Moreover, a 
significant positive correlation was also 
found between mothers' resilience and 
daughters' depression and anxiety scores. 
Therefore, current study’s finding suggest 
that resilience plays a significant role in 
dealing with stressful life events and that if 
we can develop interventions to promote 
resilience, we can make our society healthy 
and sound.  
 
The small sample size is one of the 
limitations of this study, but this study will 



 

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contribute to the literature by minimizing 
the gap. Furthermore, this study can be 
replicated with larger populations to get a 
better picture. Also, including gender 
differences and childbirth order differences 
in the study would allow researchers to 
develop interventions suitable for both 
genders and all the children irrespective of 
their birth order.   
 

Conclusion 
Overall, this study showed that resilience 

plays a significant role in preventing 

depression and anxiety among mothers and 

daughters. Therefore, more intervention 

programs must be developed that promote 

resilience not only in clinical settings but also 

in programs that are school-based. 

Moreover, family therapy sessions must be 

promoted to make society resilient. Also, as 

resilience is learnt, it is essential that 

programs that promote family resilience or 

resilience in mothers should be encouraged 

so that there are more citizens that can be 

productive and can perform well. This will 

impact the overall well-being of the society 

and the country as well. 

Acknowledgement  
The authors would like to thank the 
management of the community center and 
all the participants for their valuable 
contribution. 
 

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