The Effects of an Online Mindfulness Intervention on Perceived Stress, Depression and Anxiety in a Non-clinical Sample: A Randomised Waitlist Control Trial

Abstract

Mindfulness interventions have been shown to be effective for health and wellbeing, and delivering mindfulness programmes online may increase accessibility and reduce waiting times and associated costs; however, research assessing the effectiveness of online interventions is lacking. We sought to: (1) assess the effects of an online mindfulness intervention on perceived stress, depression and anxiety; (2) assess different facets of mindfulness (i.e. acting with awareness, describing, non-judging and non-reacting) as mechanisms of change and (3) assess whether the effect of the intervention was maintained over time. The sample was comprised of 118 adults (female, n = 95) drawn from the general population. Using a randomised waitlist control design, participants were randomised to either an intervention (INT) or waitlist control (WLC) group. Participants completed the online intervention, with the WLC group starting after a 6-week waitlist period. Participants completed measures of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7) and perceived stress (PSS-10) at baseline, post-treatment, 3- and 6-month follow-up. Participants who completed the mindfulness intervention (n = 60) reported significantly lower levels of perceived stress (d = − 1.25 [− 1.64, − 0.85]), anxiety (d = − 1.09 [− 1.47, − 0.98]) and depression (d = − 1.06 [− 1.44, − 0.67]), when compared with waitlist control participants (n = 58), and these effects were maintained at follow-up. The effect of the intervention was primarily explained by increased levels of non-judging. This study provides support for online mindfulness interventions and furthers our understanding with regards to how mindfulness interventions exert their positive effects.

Online Mindfulness Training Increases Well-Being, Trait Emotional Intelligence, and Workplace Competency Ratings: A Randomized Waitlist-Controlled Trial

“…Given that several organizational mindfulnessbased interventions do not report employing any mindfulness assessment (Davidson et al, 2003;Bazarko et al, 2013;Shonin et al, 2014;Chin et al, 2019b;Slutsky et al, 2019) further research with organizational interventions is required to explore how the different facets of mindfulness are affected by different interventions. In contrast to the findings of Querstret et al (2018), we reported significant increases on the non-reacting to inner experience facet of the FFMQ-SF. Participants in the current intervention reported significantly lower levels of stress following the mindfulness intervention, and significantly higher levels of resilience, in line with prior interventions (Klatt et al, 2009;Wolever et al, 2012;Bazarko et al, 2013;Aikens et al, 2014;Chin et al, 2019a).…”

“…Trait mindfulness increased following the intervention, with the exception of the non-judging inner experience facet of the FFMQ-SF. Few prior organizational mindfulness interventions have employed the FFMQ or FFMQ-SF (Aikens et al, 2014;Querstret et al, 2018), but both of those studies reported that non-judgment increased following their interventions. It is possible that the current intervention did not emphasize nonjudgment sufficiently to result in significantly increased ratings, or perhaps the relatively low levels of prescribed and reported mindfulness practice were insufficient at causing changes on this mindfulness facet.…”

“…Aikens et al (2014) used the FFMQ as a trait mindfulness outcome measure and reported increases on all of the facets. Querstret et al (2018) used 4 of the 5 facets of the FFMQ-SF (the observing facet was excluded due to prior research by Baer et al (2006Baer et al ( , 2008 showing that observing didn't load onto a single mindfulness construct and did not show changes in meditation-naïve participants), and reported that the non-reactivity facet did not change following the interventions. Finally, several other interventions did not report the use of any mindfulness assessment as an outcome measure (Davidson et al, 2003;Bazarko et al, 2013;Chin et al, 2019b;Slutsky et al, 2019), preventing conclusions about the effects of those intervention on trait mindfulness to be drawn.…”

“…With employees increasingly located in different parts of the world working under different priorities and schedules, remote delivery of mindfulness instruction is an attractive, cost-effective option. Prior research has shown that online mindfulness instruction is as effective as in-person instruction (Wolever et al, 2012;Bazarko et al, 2013;Aikens et al, 2014;Querstret et al, 2018). For the present research we elected to employ an online mindfulness training program for the mindfulness intervention that could be accessed from any internet-connected device (smartphone, computer, or tablet), at any time to accommodate different employee participant schedules and time constraints.…”

Effectiveness of a guided online mindfulness-focused intervention in a student population: Study protocol for a randomised control trial

“…Several studies reported no follow-up measurements 60 62 63 136. Other studies used different intervals for the follow-up measurement after the intervention, ranging from two weeks up to six months 28 43 61 134 137. To focus on the longitudinal effects of our intervention, we examine participants again six months after randomisation.…”