Meaning‐making as a mediator of anxiety and depression reduction during cognitive behavioral therapy intervention in participants with adjustment disorders

Abstract

There is a consensus among researchers about the link between low meaning in life and anxiety and depressive symptoms. One unanswered question is whether meaning‐making is a mediator of the change in anxiety and depression symptoms in participants with adjustment disorders during cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) treatment. The aims of this study were (a) to analyse whether there was meaning‐making during the application of the CBT, (b) to analyse whether meaning‐making was a mediator of anxiety psychopathology and (c) to analyse whether meaning‐making was a mediator of depressive symptoms. The sample was composed of 115 patients who satisfied the full Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)‐5 criteria for adjustment disorder as their primary diagnosis and completed CBT treatment in a primary care mental health service: 74.78% women, n = 86, and 25.22% men, n = 29, with a mean age of 41.89 (standard deviation [SD] = 10.39) years. The diagnosis was established using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM‐5 (SCID‐5), and participants filled out the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory and Purpose in Life questionnaires. The therapists were clinical psychologists with experience in clinical assessment. A repeated‐measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and two mediation analyses using the bootstrap method were performed. The results indicated that (a) There was meaning‐making during the CBT because the treated sample showed a statistically significant improvement in meaning in life, and (b) meaning‐making during the CBT was a partial mediator between anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms before and after the treatment. The present study suggests that meaning in life could be an important variable in the psychopathology of adjustment disorders.

Meaning in Life Mediates Between Emotional Deregulation and Eating Disorders Psychopathology: A Research From the Meaning-Making Model of Eating Disorders

“…Frankl states that noogenic depression is characterized by an existential vacuum, absence of meaning in life, boredom, frustration, distress, anxiety, and aggressiveness, and that its etiology would be different from that of endogenous depressions (e.g., neurobiological disturbances, early depressive schemes), indicating that around 20% of depressions are noogenous. Regarding participants with adjustment disorder, several studies have found that meaningmaking was an independent and buffering factor in adjustment in participants with depression and anxiety disorders (e.g., Marco et al, 2020a).…”

Exploring the inclusive leadership and employee change participation relationship: the role of workplace belongingness and meaning-making

“…That is, people constantly search for and assign meanings to their behaviors, interactions, relationships, objectives and incidents. Thus, subsequent to a stressful event, people begin a set of processes that include searching for and assigning meaning to the event (Marco et al. , 2020).…”

Spanish Validation of the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale: Which Dimension of Meaning in Life Is More Associated With Psychopathology in People With Mental Disorders?

“…These results have important clinical implications. Although previous studies found a strong association between MiL and psychopathology (9,10,14,15), these studies considered (48).…”

“…In contrast, people with high comprehension feels that their life is meaningful, that everything happens in a coherent way, and that the positive or negative events that occur daily are integrated into their global schemes. Previous studies found that the meaning-making process moderates and mediates several mental disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (8), eating disorders (9), adjustment disorders (10), and stress (11).…”