Being Mindful at University: A Pilot Evaluation of the Feasibility of an Online Mindfulness-Based Mental Health Support Program for Students

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This publication doesn't include Faculty of Arts. It includes Faculty of Medicine. Official publication website can be found on muni.cz.
Authors

SVĚTLÁK Miroslav LINHARTOVÁ Pavla KNEJZLÍKOVÁ Terézia KNEJZLÍK Jakub KÓŠA Barbora HORNÍČKOVÁ Veronika DVOŘÁČKOVÁ Kristýna LUČANSKÁ Klaudia SLEZÁČKOVÁ Alena ŠUMEC Rastislav

Year of publication 2021
Type Chapter of a book
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Description University study can be a life period of heightened psychological distress for many students. The development of new preventive and intervention programs to support well-being in university students is a fundamental challenge for mental health professionals. We designed an 8-week online mindfulness-based program (eMBP) combining a face-to-face approach, text, audio, video components, and support psychotherapy principles with a unique intensive reminder system using the Facebook Messenger and Slack applications in two separate runs (N = 692). We assessed the program's effect on mindful experiencing, perceived stress, emotion regulation strategies, self-compassion, negative affect, and quality of life. The results of the presented pilot study confirmed that eMBP is a feasible and effective tool in university students' mental health support. The students who completed the eMBP reported a reduction of perceived stress with a large effect size ((p)eta(2) = 0.42) as well as a decrease of negative affect experience frequency and intensity ((p)eta(2) = 0.31), an increase of being mindful in their life (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire subscales:(p)eta(2) = 0.21, 0.27, 0.25, 0.28, 0.28), and a higher rate of self-compassion ((p)eta(2) = 0.28) with a medium effect size. A small effect size was found in the frequency of using a cognitive reappraisal strategy ((p)eta(2) = 0.073). One new result is the observation of an eMBP effect ((p)eta(2) = 0.27) on the decrease in attributed importance to the quality-of-life components replicated in two consecutive runs of the program. The study affirms that mindfulness-based interventions can be effectively delivered in an eHealth form to university students.
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