Positive Psychology Interventions for Resilience Enhancement Among University Students: A Systematic Review

Background: This study aims to synthesise available evidence on positive psychology interventions for enhancing resilience among university students, based on randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted in Scopus, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PubMed from the inception of positive psychology interventions until July 2025. The search terms included “PPI” or “positive psychology intervention” and “resilience” or “psychological resilience”; “university students”, “freshmen”, “higher education students”, “adolescents”, or “adolescent” or “teenagers”; and “resilience training”, “resilience enhancement”, or “positive psychology intervention (PPI)” and “resilience reinforcement”. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses 2020 guidelines were followed for conducting and reporting this review. Results: The systematic search identified 2346 records. After the removal of duplicates and the screening of titles and abstracts, 32 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility, and four RCTs were included in the final analysis. The risk of bias was analysed for the studies using RoB-2 for Cochrane reviews, and studies deemed to be at high risk of bias were excluded from the final review. Overall, all included studies demonstrated an improvement in resilience scores in the intervention group compared to those in the control group. In this review, Cohen’s d was calculated to standardise the mean differences across the studies, even when their outcome measures differed. Conclusions: This review suggests that resilience interventions could enhance resilience and associated psychological constructs, providing preliminary guidelines for developing and implementing resilience enhancement interventions for university students. The review protocol is registered under PROSPERO with the ID CRD420251138034.