Effects of Online Versus In-Person Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): The Impact of Adding Brief Individual Interviews
Mindfulness May 12, 2026 Yasushi Ito, Cheryl A. Browne, Kazumi Yamamoto
An 8-week community-based Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program improved psychological well-being whether delivered in person or online. However, online delivery without brief individual interviews showed 32.3–62.0% smaller improvements in mood, health-related quality of life, and perceived stress compared to in-person delivery, even though mindfulness and self-compassion improved similarly. Adding brief individual interviews to the online protocol produced improvements 27.0–184.2% larger than online-only and was non-inferior to in-person delivery across all measures. The findings suggest that online MBSR can match in-person effectiveness when augmented with individual interviews, highlighting the importance of instructor factors.