Objectives: No participant-rated tool exists for assessing MBI teaching competence. This study aimed to develop and validate the MBI:PAT to address this limitation. The primary objective was to develop a new measure, the Mindfulness-based Interventions: Participants' Assessment of Teaching" (MBI:PAT), and to evaluate its psychometric properties across several studies using independent samples....
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has shown efficacy for alleviating chronic low back pain (cLBP) and is included in current treatment guidelines. However, benefits are moderate. We aimed to optimize MBSR for chronic pain by using recent research to develop Mindfulness-Based Pain Reduction (MBPR) and test it in patients with cLBP. Phase 1: We modified the MBSR curriculum with...
Mindfulness-Based Programs (MBPs) are increasingly being introduced into a range of mainstream contexts such as health care, education, criminal justice, workplace, community settings, and leadership. MBPs are available in some form in every continent, and in some countries have become established as part of standard care in publicly funded health care systems and routinely embedded into school...
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) reduces depression relapse, yet graduates have expressed a need for structured guidance post-program to maintain mindfulness practice and sustain benefits. To address this, we created MBCT for Depression-Taking it Further (MBCT-D-TiF). To refine and pilot test feasibility and acceptability of MBCT-D-TiF. We collected qualitative focus group data to...
Prior data suggests the Mindfulness-Based Interventions: (MBI) Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) has good inter-rater reliability, but many raters knew teacher experience level. We sought to further evaluate the MBI-TAC's inter-rater reliability and obtain preliminary data on predictive validity. We videorecorded 21 MBSR teachers from academic and community settings. We trained 19...
People commonly cope with chronic low back pain (cLBP) by ignoring and distraction. Can mindful interoceptive exposure to the pain sensation itself and its phenomenological components be an alternative approach? Single-arm feasibility study in patients with cLBP using a 2-minute attention exercise guided by a smartphone app several times per day over 8 weeks. We assessed feasibility, pre/post...
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an effective group intervention for reducing rates of depression relapse. However, about one-third of graduates experience relapse within 1 year of completing the course. The current study aimed to explore the need and strategies for additional support following the MBCT course. We conducted 4 focus groups via videoconferencing, two with MBCT...
The Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) is an important tool for assessing teacher skill and aspects of the fidelity of mindfulness-based interventions, but prior research on and implementation of the MBI:TAC has used video recordings, which can be difficult to obtain, share for assessments, and which increase privacy concerns for participants. Audio-only...
Objective: To determine the effects of ESRT (an iteratively adapted and tailored MBI) on perceived stress, executive cognitive function, psychosocial well-being (ie, burnout, mindfulness), and pro-inflammatory gene expression in surgical (ESRT-1) and mixed specialty (ESRT-2) PGY-1 volunteers. Summary of background and data: Tailored MBIs have proven beneficial in multiple high-stress and...
Background: The Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) is a widely used tool for assessing fidelity in mindfulness-based program (MBP) research and training. It also supports MBP teacher reflective and skill development. MBI:TAC assessors review MBP teaching and rate the teaching on 6 domains. The MBI:TAC yields individual domain and overall scores, using 6...
Meditation practices are often used to cultivate interoception or internally-oriented attention to bodily sensations, which may improve health via cognitive and emotional regulation of bodily signals. However, it remains unclear how meditation impacts internal attention (IA) states due to lack of measurement tools that can objectively assess mental states during meditation practice itself, and...
Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to cultivate prosocial behavior. However, the lack of diverse representation within both scientific and participant populations in contemplative neuroscience may limit generalizability and translation of prior findings. To address these issues, we propose a research framework called Intersectional Neuroscience which adapts research procedures to...
BACKGROUND: Diet patterns have a profound influence on glycemic control for individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and craving-related eating is an important obstacle to dietary adherence. A growing body of research suggests that carbohydrate-restricted (CR) diets can improve glycemic control and reduce medication dependence in T2DM. However, limited data speak to the effects of...
Evidence links depression and stress to more rapid progression of HIV-1 disease. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to test whether an intervention aimed at improving stress management and emotion regulation, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), would improve immunological (i.e. CD4+ T-cell counts) and psychological outcomes in persons with HIV-1 infection. We randomly assigned...
Assessing program or intervention fidelity/integrity is an important methodological consideration in clinical and educational research. These critical variables influence the degree to which outcomes can be attributed to the program and the success of the transition from research to practice and back again. Research in the Mindfulness-Based Program (MBP) field has been expanding rapidly over...
Background: The novel group treatment program Training for Awareness, Resilience, and Action (TARA) was developed to target specific mechanisms based on neuroscience findings in adolescent depression and framed within the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria. TARA contains training of autonomic and emotional self-regulation, interoceptive awareness, relational skills,...
Background and objective: Sleep disturbance is a common problem among adults with obesity. Mindfulness interventions have been shown to improve sleep quality in various populations but have not been investigated in adults with obesity. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a mindfulness-based weight-loss intervention with an active control on self-reported sleep quality among...
We evaluated changes in mindful eating as a potential mechanism underlying the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention for weight loss on eating of sweet foods and fasting glucose levels. We randomized 194 obese individuals (M age = 47.0 ± 12.7 years; BMI = 35.5 ± 3.6; 78% women) to a 5.5-month diet-exercise program with or without mindfulness training. The mindfulness group, relative to...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the current leading causes of disability worldwide. Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the onset of depression, with MDD affecting 8-20% of all youth. Traditional treatment methods have not been sufficiently effective to slow the increasing prevalence of adolescent depression. We therefore propose a new model for the treatment of adolescent...
Background: Many debilitating symptoms arise from cancer and its treatment that are often unrelieved by established methods. Pranayama, a series of yogic breathing techniques, may improve cancer-related symptoms and quality of life, but it has not been studied for this purpose. Objectives: A pilot study was performed to evaluate feasibility and to test the effects of pranayama on...
Psychological distress and elevated cortisol secretion promote abdominal fat, a feature of the Metabolic Syndrome. Effects of stress reduction interventions on abdominal fat are unknown. Forty-seven overweight/obese women (mean BMI =31.2) were randomly assigned to a 4-month intervention or waitlist group to explore effects of a mindfulness program for stress eating. We assessed mindfulness,...
Context: Advances in antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV offer life-extending benefit; however, the side effects associated with ART use negatively impact quality of life and medication adherence among people living with HIV. Objectives: This study tested the efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for reducing ART symptoms and bother/distress related to ART side effects....
Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to cultivate prosocial behavior. However, the lack of diverse representation within both scientific and participant populations in contemplative neuroscience may limit generalizability and translation of prior findings. To address these issues, we propose a research framework called Intersectional Neuroscience which adapts research procedures to...