A tailored mindfulness intervention for university students with varying mental imagery abilities

Mindfulness Intervention: The intervention material was adapted from module content from the unified protocol for the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders (Ehrenreich-May et al., 2017). It consists of psychoeducation on present-focused attention, utilizing different bodily senses to observe their (or the virtual) environment. The intervention prompts breath control, somatic experiences and feeling throughout the body, observing thought content, and prompted the observation of one's own emotional experiences (i.e., emotional awareness), VR condition - The virtual environment/ video content was recorded using a 360-degree VR camera (GoPro Hero). The audio recording was played in conjunction with a 10-minute recording of a natural environment (i.e., a creek situated in natural bushland). While viewing the scenery, participants listened to the voice-over and focused their attention on their feelings, thoughts, breathing, and the virtual environment. The audio mindfulness was delivered verbally by a provisionally registered psychologist, practicing under supervision. Traditional Mindfulness/ Audio Only: The content of the traditional mindfulness group uses the same audio and script recording of the mindfulness meditation delivered in the VR activity, except that participants will navigate play the audio file on their smartphone device and have the option to listen to this with or without their own headphones. Control Group. The control condition required participants to watch a 10-minute video on YouTube pertaining to finance and the stock market. complete an online educative module on hand hygiene practices. Participants will follow study prompts/ instructions to access the intervention landing page using their preferred web-browser on their smartphone device. Adherence was monitored using website data and metrics to access participants time spent playing the intervention recording. Supervision of participants through observation was not conducted as the study wanted to replicate (as best as possible) a more externally valid experience of participants autonomously accessing and completing the intervention as they would, were they to access the intervention outside of the research lab. Participants register through an online form and are then randomly allocated to either of the three treatment conditions: virtual reality condition, traditional mindfulness condition, control condition. A link will be emailed to participants to access the pre-intervention questionnaire package through Qualtrics. They are to be instructed to complete this before entering the intervention space. Upon completion of the screening and pre-questionnaires and group allocation, participants selected a time to come to the intervention space located at their respective Griffith university campus (either Gold Coast or Mount Gravatt). Those in the VR condition were given face-to-face instructions to set up the HMD and access the intervention prior to use. Those in the traditional group were also given instruction to engage with the mindfulness audio and those in the control task were also assisted with accessing their youtube audio on the university ipads with headphones. The treatment space was set up in an inviting but least distracting way in case participants in the traditional group were to open their eyes. Participants in all groups completed the intervention alone in the soundproof intervention space with the supervisor on stand-by for troubleshooting and assistive purposes. After completion, participants were directed to the online post-intervention questionnaires. One-week following the participation, participants were emailed the follow-up questionnaires and completed. Course credit was then awarded for participants completing all stages of the intervention. The total duration to complete the entire intervention including the questionnaires is approximately 2 hours: - 30 minutes (pre-intervention questionnaire) - 15 minutes (intervention + time allocated for troubleshooting and set-up) - 30 minutes (post-intervention questionnaire) - 30 minutes (one-week follow-up questionnaire)