Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have demonstrated efficacy in reducing symptoms in survivors of early-stage cancer and have shown promise in adults with advanced cancer and their family caregivers. These interventions may be especially helpful for coping with advanced cancer because acceptance and a greater focus on present-moment experiences are central to the adjustment process. Mindfulness may be a potential mechanism underlying MBI’s health effects, yet suboptimal assessment of mindfulness hinders examination of this hypothesis. Widely used self-report measures of mindfulness require participants to have high self-awareness and comprehend a complex skill and show limited responsiveness to MBIs. Behavioral assessment of mindfulness may address the limitations of self-report measures. The goal of the current study was to obtain preliminary evidence of the validity of a behavioral measure of mindfulness, Levinson and colleagues’ breath counting task, and its responsiveness to MBI among patients and caregivers coping with advanced cancer. Fifty-five patient-caregiver dyads were recruited from a university hospital and community clinics in Indiana. Dyads were randomized to either a 6-week MBI or a usual care control condition. Measures were administered at baseline prior to intervention (week 0), at the end of the 6-week intervention period (week 6), and 1-month post-intervention (week 10). Measures included the breath counting task, self-reported mindfulness, avoidant coping, and distress. Linear mixed modeling was used to determine whether the MEANING intervention led to increased behavioral and self-reported mindfulness compared to the usual care group. Caregivers in the MEANING condition showed improved behavioral mindfulness relative to caregivers in usual care, whereas patients in both the MEANING and usual care conditions showed relatively stable behavioral mindfulness over time. Additionally, there was no evidence that the MEANING intervention impacted behavioral mindfulness to a greater extent than self-reported mindfulness. To further examine the behavioral mindfulness measure’s validity, its relations with self-reported mindfulness, avoidant coping, and distress were examined at all time points. For both patients and caregivers, correlations between behavioral and self-reported mindfulness were small or nearly zero and were not uniformly positive. In the MEANING condition, correlations showed mostly small changes over time, and in the control condition, correlations generally showed little change over time. In addition, for patients and caregivers, most correlations between behavioral mindfulness and distress and avoidant coping were approaching zero or small. Results support the feasibility of the breath counting task in adults with advanced cancer and their caregivers, but provide limited support for its validity. The task warrants further evaluation in populations coping with chronic illness.

This thesis deals with the use of mindfulness techniques at adult clients with ADHD aiming to determine the beneficial effects of this kind of intervention. An eight-week long mindfulness course carried out by means of the action research was attended by twelve adults with ADHD in total. The course designed as eight individual online meetings helped to get a deeper insight into the benefit and demands of the individual techniques as they are perceived by the participants. The level of the attentiveness change was monitored by the Face Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-15-CZ) both before and after attending the course. The analysis of the participants' answers, which have become the main method to collect the data, shows that the mindfulness method has brought changes in the participants' lives; among them getting conscious, present, the ability to slow down, calm down and stop, thanks to which they have managed to better face the ADHD manifestation. Mindfulness appears to be another possible intervention which can help adults to reduce difficulties caused by this disorder.

En kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie i form av en digital enkätundersökning har genomförts med syftet att undersöka en eventuell skillnad i självskattad tacksamhet mellan personer som mediterar och personer som inte mediterar. Tacksamhet kan beskrivas som uppskattning och en känsla av tacksamhet i vardagen, såväl som en tacksam respons på en händelse som uppfattas som välgörande (Bartholomew et al., 2022). Tacksamhet har en positiv korrelation med mindfulness, och eftersom meditation är ett sätt att träna på mindfulness, bedömdes det som intressant att se på förbindelsen mellan självskattad tacksamhet bland personer som mediterar, i jämförelse med personer som inte mediterar. Eftersom tacksamhet och mindfulness är kopplade till en högre livskvalitet och bättre välmående, ansågs det som relevant att undersöka om och hur det är möjligt att öka förmågan för medveten närvaro och därmed för att lägga märke till upplevelser av tacksamhet. Instrumentet som användes var The Grateful Questionnaire (GQ-6), som mäter dispositionell tacksamhet (McCullough et al., 2002). Studien inkluderade 277 respondenter som rekryterades via olika grupper i sociala medier. Data analyserades i SPSS och hypotesprövning utfördes med ett oberoende t-test. Resultatet visade att det finns en signifikant skillnad mellan personer som mediterar och personer som inte mediterar med avseende på självskattad tacksamhet, där personer som mediterar skattade högre för tacksamhet. Det konkluderas med att det kan ha en nytta att framtida forskning fortsätter undersöka hur meditation och mindfulness kan öka människors livskvalitet.

Using qualitative methodology, the authors explored the experiences of 8 clients who received a 5-minute mindfulness meditation (MM) as implemented by 6 counseling students during a counseling session. Themes that emerged included (a) variations in individual experiences; (b) mental, physical, and emotional components of the experience; (c) perceptions of MM; (d) preferences for MM; and (e) implications for continued practice of MM.

No description available.

Trait mindfulness has been found to be a beneficial characteristic of athletes. However, the research on mindfulness interventions has been limited, poorly described, and poorly designed. The current study sought to determine whether a brief mindfulness intervention improves distress tolerance among athletes. In addition, this experiment tested the impact of cultivating mindfulness on psychological variables that may be important for sport such as anxiety, happiness and capacity for stress. Athletes were randomly assigned to one of the three intervention conditions (brief mindfulness, sham mindfulness and no-intervention control). All participants completed distress tolerance measures, a motor performance measure under distressing conditions, and self-reported psychological measures. These measures were administered at pre- and post-intervention. Results indicated that the brief mindfulness intervention did not result in significant improvements in the primary outcome variables, in comparison to the sham mindfulness and no-intervention control groups. Strengths and limitations of the study, as well as future directions are provided.

No description available.

While there is a growing body of research to expand our theoretical and conceptual understanding of the multi-faceted construct mindfulness, the majority of studies have thus far focused on the efficacy of short-term mindfulness-based interventions to mitigate symptoms associated with myriad physiological and psychological conditions. Research investigating the relational effects of mindfulness within families is limited. This qualitative study examined eight long-term meditators' perceptions of how their mindfulness practice influenced their parenting behavior. Using thematic analysis, the central themes to emerge included (1) increased communication skills, (2) decreased emotional reactivity, (3) increased perspective-taking, and (4) greater self-understanding. Limitations of the study as well as future research and clinical implications are also discussed. / Master of Science

Occupational burnout related to stress in the workplace is frequently experienced by nurses who are regularly confronted with trauma, suffering, and high workloads. Burnout can negatively impact patient care and have detrimental effects on nurse’s physical and mental health. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs have been researched as a potential intervention for reducing stress and burnout through cultivating present awareness, emotional regulation, and positive thinking. A literature review was performed to explore the current knowledge on the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation related to stress and burnout in nurses and to provide recommendations for future research on this topic. Findings reveal strong evidence that mindfulness meditation is effective in decreasing stress and burnout in nurses. Mindfulness based interventions have been shown to significantly decrease stress, improve all aspects of burnout, and increase self-compassion and compassion satisfaction. Mindfulness meditation has the potential to prevent stress and burnout in nurses by decreasing self-judgement and over-identification with experience, and by increasing resiliency, compassion, and emotional regulation.

Structural equation modeling was utilized to test a hypothesized model for the effects of negative biases, thought suppression, experiential avoidance, and mindfulness on pathological anxiety. Self-report scales were used to measure each construct. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the factor structure of each scale. Identified factors were disparate from those in previous research on some scales, so items from scales were pooled to create scales for each construct. Alternate models were tested. No models showed adequate fit. Significant paths between most constructs partially supported our theory. Surprisingly, thought suppression did not predict anxiety. This finding is important because previous literature cites parallels between thought suppression and experiential avoidance to explain the role of experiential avoidance in anxiety. Additionally, the effects of mindfulness on anxiety were mediated by experiential avoidance and negativity bias, providing a possible explanation for the efficacy of mindfulness based treatments for anxiety.