A Self-Compassion and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Mobile Intervention (Serene) for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: Promoting Adaptive Emotional Regulation and Wisdom
Frontiers in Psychology March 22, 2021 Mohamed Al-Refae, Amr Al-Refae, Melanie Munroe et al.
A 4-week mindfulness and self-compassion smartphone app (Serene) reduced depressive symptoms and improved decisiveness, self-compassion, and emotional regulation compared to a wait-list control group. Moderate between-group differences were observed for depressive symptoms (d = -0.43), decisiveness (d = 0.34), and self-compassion (d = 0.6), with improvements in self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, and decreases in self-judgment, isolation, and overidentification. A small between-group difference was found for emotional regulation (d = 0.28). The intervention group also showed moderate within-group decreases in stress (d = -0.52) and anxiety (d = -0.47).