Effectiveness of a school-based mindfulness program for transdiagnostic prevention in young adolescents
Section snippets
Participants
A range of urban coeducational secondary schools in Adelaide, South Australia who were either known to the researchers, had expressed interest in being involved in research or were conveniently located were contacted by email with telephone follow up, and four schools (one private, three public) agreed to participate. One public primary school also expressed interest in taking part and was included in the study. Students in Year 7 (primary school) and 8 (secondary school) were targeted as
Description of participants
Fig. 1 shows the flow of participants through the study. Ten parents (2.4% of eligible students) actively requested that their child not be involved in the study, and of these, the four students in the mindfulness group undertook private study outside of the classroom during these lessons while the six students in the control group did not take part in survey analysis. Consent forms were not returned for a further 97 students (23.4% of eligible students), and these data were not included in the
Discussion
This study investigated an existing 8-week mindfulness curriculum in early adolescents within a randomised controlled design, with a wide range of outcome measures: depression, anxiety, wellbeing, eating disorder risk factors, emotional dysregulation, self-compassion and mindfulness. Unlike earlier promising studies in secondary schools (Atkinson and Wade, 2015, Kuyken et al., 2013, Raes et al., 2014, Sibinga et al., 2013), we found no improvements in any of the outcome variables either
Conclusion
In a tightly controlled experimental design, evaluating the impact of an existing and widely available school-based mindfulness program, no improvements were demonstrated on any outcome measure either immediately post intervention or at three month follow-up. Further research, including investigation of mediators and moderators in experimental designs, is required to identify active ingredients and optimal dose in mindfulness-based programs in school settings.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by a Flinders University Australian Postgraduate Award and a scholarship provided by the Fraser Mustard Centre, Telethon Kids Institute and Department of Education and Child Development. There were no conflicts of interest.
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