Mindfulness
Did an online mindfulness course help people cope with lockdown?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
People who took an online mindfulness course during the first COVID-19 lockdown reported less stress and anxiety and better emotion regulation than people who did not, and the gains lasted at least a month.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Non-randomised controlled trial: people who enrolled in an online MBSR course versus people who were interested but did not enrol; self-report at pre, post and 1-month follow-up, intention-to-treat mixed models plus growth-curve and mediation analyses
- N
- N=92 · 92 participants in total according to the Results (the Methods also describe 46 who agreed to serve as controls); 71 completed all three measurements (33 MBSR, 38 control)
- Population
- Israeli adults from the general population who expressed interest in a discounted online MBSR course during the first COVID-19 wave; mostly female, secular and university-educated
- Outcome
- Mindfulness (manipulation check), perceived stress, state anxiety, difficulties in emotion regulation and intolerance of uncertainty
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Key findings
Compared with controls, the MBSR group showed larger increases in self-reported mindfulness and larger decreases in perceived stress, state anxiety and difficulties regulating emotions; the control group did not change significantly on these measures. The improvements were still present at the 1-month follow-up, even though pandemic restrictions had tightened by then. Intolerance of uncertainty did not change in either group. A mediation analysis suggested that the improvement in emotion regulation partly accounted for the drop in a combined stress-and-anxiety score.
Methodology
The researchers followed people who had shown interest in a live, Zoom-based Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in spring 2020. Those who actually enrolled formed the intervention group, and those who decided not to enrol (or found the course full) served as controls, so groups were not randomised. The 8-week course had weekly 2.5-hour group sessions, 30 minutes of daily home practice and a shortened silent retreat. Everyone completed questionnaires on mindfulness, stress, anxiety, emotion regulation and intolerance of uncertainty before the course, right after it, and 1 month later.
Limitations
Because people chose whether to join the course, the groups may differ in motivation, personality or life circumstances; indeed, the enrolled group started with lower mindfulness and more emotion-regulation difficulties. There was no active control, so benefits could come from the group, the teachers or simply doing something structured, rather than mindfulness itself. All outcomes were self-report questionnaires, follow-up was only 1 month, and the reported sample sizes are not fully consistent across sections. The mediation analysis uses change scores from an observational comparison, so it cannot prove that emotion regulation causes the improvement.
How this study connects
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