Occupational resilience: Scoping review of conceptualisations and applications in contexts of adversity

Abstract

Occupational resilience has emerged as a construct that links the capacity to face adversity with the role of meaningful occupations in the adaptation and recovery of individuals, groups, and communities. However, its definition, theoretical frameworks, and applications remain heterogeneous and partial. This lack of systematisation hinders its integration into occupational therapy and occupational science. This review offers a structured view of occupational resilience and of the place that meaningful occupations occupy in resilience processes, proposing a process-oriented definition that articulates personal, contextual, and occupational dimensions. The results underscore the need to define integrated theoretical frameworks and occupational therapy interventions explicitly oriented towards the occupational effects of trauma, which validate pain, support the restoration and reinvention of occupational participation, and question the social conditions that make sustained resilience necessary.