Effects of a brief mindfulness-based intervention program for stress management among medical students: the Mindful-Gym randomized controlled study

Abstract

Pursuing undergraduate medical training can be very stressful and academically challenging experience. A 5-week mindfulness-based stress management (MBSM/Mindful-Gym) program was developed to help medical students cope with stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in reducing stress among students in a medical school in Malaysia. Seventy-five medical students participated in the program. They were stratified according to years of studies and randomly allocated to intervention (N = 37) and control groups (N = 38). The following outcome variables were measured at pre- and post-intervention: mindfulness (with Mindful Awareness Attention Scale); perceived stress (with Perceived Stress Scale); mental distress (with General Health Questionnaire), and self-efficacy (with General Self-efficacy Scale). Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to analyse the effect of group (intervention vs. control) on changes in the outcome variables. There were significant improvements at one week post-intervention in all outcome variables: mindfulness (β = 0.19, ΔR2 = 0.04, p = .040, f (2) = 0.05), perceived stress (β = -0.26, ΔR2 = 0.07, p = .009, f (2) = 0.10); mental distress (β = -0.28, ΔR2 = 0.10, p = .003, f (2) = 0.15); and self-efficacy (β = 0.30, ΔR2 = 0.09, p < .001, f (2) = 0.21). Six months after the intervention, those who had joined the program reported higher self-efficacy compared to those in the control group (β = 0.24, ΔR2 = 0.06, p = .020, f (2) = 0.08); but there was no difference in other outcome measures. More than 90% of the participants found the program applicable in helping patients and all reported that they would recommend it to others. This study indicates that the program is potentially an effective stress management program for medical students in Malaysia.

Coping with stress in medical students: results of a randomized controlled trial using a mindfulness-based stress prevention training (MediMind) in Germany

“…Furthermore, our sample has no equal distribution of sex which may lead to distortions and effect the generalizability. This limitation is in line with other studies [18, 23] that included predominantly female participants. With respect to the gender ratio in German medical schools, it should be stated that there is no equal distribution in sex and that female students predominate [55].…”

“…To assess the efficacy of mindfulness, studies of different standards are available. With reference to results of two-armed randomized controlled trials, mindfulness meditation shows good effects in reducing distress or enhancing mental health of medical students [18–20, 22], whereas one study investigating mindfulness meditation could not confirm these effects [49]. In comparison, MediMind is unique in its combination of mindfulness meditation and teaching skills that enable the student to reduce a stressful experience when change is possible.…”

“…The use of mindfulness-based intervention programs has become very popular in medical schools and it has been proven to be an effective method, as it positively affects negative emotions, mental distress and perceived stress, and enhances self-efficacy, empathy and self-compassion [17–21]. The long-term effect of mindfulness courses, however, had only been evaluated by a few studies in a controlled condition [18, 22]. The positive effects on perceived stress or mental distress became apparent directly after the training but did not persist at follow-up.…”

Mindfulness‐based stress reduction for psychological distress among nurses: A systematic review

“…One of the adapted programmes was a brief Mindfulness‐based Stress Reduction (b‐MBSR) which was a 4‐week version of the MBSR and MBCT (Mackenzie et al, ). Another programme consisted of MBSR and MBCT; the Mindful‐Gym, a 5‐week programme, which was adapted to serve the multi‐ethnic community in Malaysia (Keng et al, ; Phang et al, , , ). These shorter programmes give nurses the opportunity to learn mindfulness despite their heavy work schedule, which often prevents them from attending the full 8‐week MBSR.…”

Dispositional Mindfulness Predicts Enhanced Smoking Cessation and Smoking Lapse Recovery

“…The MAAS has been associated with greater acting with awareness (51) and indicators of better psychological functioning (e.g., lower depression, anxiety, and rumination; higher positive affect; 3), as well as neural correlates of attention and emotion regulation (52). Furthermore, meditation practitioners score higher on the MAAS than non-meditators (3), and MAAS scores increase after mindfulness-based treatment (53, 54). The MAAS showed good internal consistency in the current sample (α = 0.92).…”