Background: Koru is a 4-week group mindfulness-based intervention that previously demonstrated psychological benefits in university students through its offering via a counseling center (Greeson, Juberg, Mayatan, James, & Rogers, 2014).
Aim: This study examined the feasibility of Koru offered universally to students via collaborative outreach (i.e., student interest, attendance, adverse events, participant acceptability, and participant willingness to complete assessments).
Method: Across five semesters, Koru was advertised via flyers, emails to student organizations and faculty and staff, and counseling center referrals at a southeastern public university with 29,000-students. Interested students were randomly assigned to Koru or a waitlist. In-person Koru groups took place in classrooms on campus. Assessments included practice logs, program evaluations, and pre- and post-intervention surveys measuring mindfulness and psychological symptoms.
Results: Interest was sufficient to offer 2-3 groups per semester (171 students). Of those assigned to Koru, 44.4% completed 3-4 sessions and 34.9% did not attend any sessions. The adverse event rate was 2.9%. Evaluations were positive and all participants attending the last session completed them. The response rate was 29.0% for log completion and 17.9% for survey completion.
Conclusion: Results support student interest in, and acceptability of Koru offered to all students on campus outside of a counseling center. Data collection was challenging.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.