ObjectivesResearch on resilience has been gaining momentum, and it has already been shown that increased resilience creates positive changes at the individual and collective levels. Understanding of the factors associated with resilience may guide specific actions directed towards different populations. The objective of this study was to investigate these associated factors within a population of medical students.DesignCross-sectional census.SettingA public medical school in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.ParticipantsOut of a total of 551 medical students, five students were excluded due to inactive registrations, and four transferred students were also excluded, resulting in a total of 542 remaining participants.MeasuresAdopting an anonymous questionnaire that included the Resilience Scale, in addition to questions related to sociodemographic, behavioural health-related and academic variables, the association between these variables and resilience was investigated.ResultsThe high rate of answers to each item constitutes a indication of students’ interest in participating, whereas the lowest percentile was 97.1%. The mean resilience score obtained was considered moderate. Factors such as gender, race, previous schools attended, financial independence, living situation, parents’ education level, religion, quota-based admission, smoking, alcohol abuse and use of illegal drugs were not associated with resilience. In a multivariate analysis using ordinal logistic regression, associations were maintained only between the highest resilience score and the non-use of habit-forming prescription drugs (OR: 0.58; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.80), having a better perception of one’s own health (OR: 0.57; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.81) and being older (OR: 1.37; 95% CI 1.12 to 1.67).ConclusionThe census performed with the medical students showed, with the multivariate analysis, that besides age, the variables most closely tied with resilience were health and medicalisation, and the variables connected with income and religion showed no association.

Silicosis is a pneumoconiosis characterized by fibrosis of the lung parenchyma caused by the inhalation of silica dust. Tuberculosis is an important and frequent infectious complication of silicosis, called silicotuberculosis. The risk of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients with silicosis is up to 40 times higher when compared to the general population. As the radiological findings are similar in both diseases, the diagnosis of silicotuberculosis is not always simple. We describe the case of a patient with silicosis associated with clinical and radiological findings compatible with tuberculosis.