None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
People who complete mindfulness programs tend to report improvements in mental health such as a reduction in psychological stress and an increase in wellbeing. The aim of this research project is to evaluate a popular four-week online mindfulness program and its effects on mental health (and on factors related to mental health) when compared to doing nothing at all. While this program has been rated very positively by individuals who have completed it in the past, further research is required to evaluate its effectiveness.
Interventions
Intervention name:
Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance
Intervention duration:
4 weeks (with an additional 4 week follow-up period).
Time commitment per week:
The estimated time to complete weekly tasks is three hours per week and the participant can spread this time across each week at their own discretion.
Mode of delivery:
Online via the FutureLearn digital education platform (futurelearn.com)
Intervention description:
The mindfulness-based intervention involved in this trial i
Intervention name: Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance Intervention duration: 4 weeks (with an additional 4 week follow-up period). Time commitment per week: The estimated time to complete weekly tasks is three hours per week and the participant can spread this time across each week at their own discretion. Mode of delivery: Online via the FutureLearn digital education platform (futurelearn.com) Intervention description: The mindfulness-based intervention involved in this trial is a 4-week online intervention called Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance. This program is readily accessible and endorsed as a stress reduction program for tertiary education students and employees at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. The training approach in this program adheres to the formal defining features of mindfulness-based interventions in that it involves weekly meditation practices using the body, breath, and sound, as well as cognitive strategies trained in activities that center around focused-attention meditation and acceptance of thoughts. Each week the program will deliver a series of topics that require participants to watch videos, perform formal and informal mindfulness meditation practices, and engage in reflection and discussion tasks related to the course content. Each week of the four-week program focuses on a different topic: (1) Week 1: Introducing Mindfulness; (2) Week 2: Mindfulness and mindfulness stress reduction; (3) Week 3: Improving work and study performance; and (4) Week 4: Mindfulness as a way of life. There are also homework tasks related to the weekly topics. These include identifying unhelpful cognitive patterns in real time as participants go about their usual daily lives, as well as integrating mindfulness practices into everyday tasks. The intervention is not personalized to individual participants. Adherence monitoring: Adherence will be monitored via a weekly emails each week for four weeks asking participants to report: (1) whether or not they participated in the program that given week, and (2) what step of the program they got up to that week, and (3) an estimate of the time spent engaging in formal and informal meditation practices as measured by the Mindfulness Adherence Questionnaire (Hassed et al., 2021). Adherence requirements: While participants are recommended to complete all tasks and spend three hours engaging with the intervention materials each week, there will be no formal adherence requirement to the intervention. This will be a pragmatic experiment that investigates the effect of participating in this intervention in a manner that generalisable to typical usage in the target population, which may be more or less than the recommended intervention prescription. References: Hassed, C., Flighty, A., Chambers, R., Hosemans, D., Bailey, N., Connaughton, S., Lee, S., & Kazantzis, N. (2021). Advancing the Assessment of Mindfulness-Based Meditation Practice: Psychometric Evaluation of the Mindfulness Adherence Questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 45(1), 190–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10150-z
Sponsors
Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies (M3CS)
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. You are proficient in English . For individuals whose first language is English, evidence of proficiency can include completion of secondary or higher education studies in English. For individuals whose first language is not English, evidence of proficiency can include a sufficient score on a language skills test (e.g., overall IELTS score of 6.5 with no band below 6.0). 2. You consent to being randomly allocated to a treatment or no-treatment group and understand that it is essential to remain part of that group for the duration of the study even if it is not your preferred outcome. 3. You consent to being contacted by researchers via email and mobile phone for the duration of the study. 4. You consent to all responses provided in this study being stripped of identifying information and deposited in a scientific public database (osf.io) for independent verification of results and for use of these data in future research for the betterment of human knowledge. 5. You consent to your name and email address being shared with the ISN Psychology Accounts department for the purpose of providing remuneration. 6. You currently reside in Australia and will remain in Australia for at least 10 weeks after the trial start date.
Exclusion criteria
1. Past completion of a formal mindfulness meditation program at any time in the past. 2. Current or history of physical medical conditions that include head injury, spinal injury, epilepsy, or cardiovascular disease, or any other health issue that would impact capacity to engage with the course. 3. Currently suffering from severe periods of depression or anxiety. This might include feelings of sadness, hopelessness, excessive anxiety, or a loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities occurring nearly every day for more than two months and which impairs normal daily functioning. This also includes a formal clinical diagnosis of a depressive or anxiety disorder. 4. Past or present incidence of any other serious mental or physical health issues that would impact one’s capacity to engage with the course. This includes past or present psychotic disorders.
Outcome results
None listed