Mindfulness-based interventions for psychiatric disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

<p>Despite widespread scientific and popular interest in mindfulness-based interventions, questions regarding the empirical status of these treatments remain. We sought to examine the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for clinical populations on disorder-specific symptoms. To address the question of relative efficacy, we coded the strength of the comparison group into five categories: no treatment, minimal treatment, non-specific active control, specific active control, and evidence-based treatment. A total of 142 non-overlapping samples and 12,005 participants were included. At post-treatment, mindfulness-based interventions were superior to no treatment (d = 0.55), minimal treatment (d = 0.37), non-specific active controls (d = 0.35), and specific active controls (d = 0.23). Mindfulness conditions did not differ from evidence-based treatments (d = -0.004). At follow-up, mindfulness-based interventions were superior to no treatment conditions (d = 0.50), non-specific active controls (d = 0.52), and specific active controls (d = 0.29). Mindfulness conditions did not differ from minimal treatment conditions (d = 0.38) and evidence-based treatments (d = 0.09). Effects on specific disorder subgroups showed the most consistent evidence in support of mindfulness for depression, pain conditions, smoking, and addictive disorders. Results support the notion that mindfulness-based interventions hold promise as evidence-based treatments.</p>

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

“…The benefits of both programs are empirically supported by positive physiological effects (Bakon et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2017;Nuffer et al, 2017). In fact, these techniques have been suggested to yield better outcomes in the mitigation of stress than psychoeducation (Oommen et al, 2017), support groups (Mestdagh et al, 2018), cognitive-behavioral therapy (Everson et al, 2018;Rotenstein et al, 2016), and antidepressant medication (Kuyken et al, 2016;Goldberg et al, 2018). Additionally, the benefits of mindfulness training programs in health care students have been reported to persist into their professional careers (Fond et al, 2018;McGrady et al, 2019), even with minimal training (Lowe et al, 2016;Nuffer et al, 2017) and low levels of adherence to formal mindfulness practice (Daya and Hearn, 2018).…”

Mindfulness and progressive muscle relaxation as standardized session‐introduction in individual therapy: A randomized controlled trial

“…Both MBIs are offered in eight weekly 2‐hr classes, where patients learn meditations that include a sustained attentional focus on body, breath, and thoughts (Huijbers et al, ). Recent meta‐analyses show medium‐to‐large effect sizes on symptoms of anxiety and depression for manualized MBIs (anxiety: g = 0.64–1.00; depression: g = 0.53–0.95), demonstrating their clinical efficacy (Goldberg et al, ; Hofmann, Sawyer, Witt, & Oh, ; Khoury et al, ). In these meta‐analyses, mindfulness‐related variables (dispositional mindfulness, intensity of mindfulness practice, mindfulness experience, allegiance) and demographic and diagnostic variables (sex, age, gender, diagnosis, comorbidities) have been investigated as potentially relevant moderating variables.…”

Can clinical psychology students benefit from brief and intensive mindfulness training?

“…As noted by Siegel (), mindfulness can be a form of self‐attunement that could facilitate the attunement to others. There is increasing evidence that mindfulness training counteracts psychological distress (Goldberg et al, ), and that these effects are due to proposed mechanisms of action in mindfulness‐based interventions (Gu, Strauss, Bond, & Cavanagh, ). Mindfulness training may thus constitute a form of self‐care for clinicians that enables them to deal with stressors and emotional reactions in an adaptive manner.…”