Neuro-cognitive effects of mindfulness training in secondary school pupils

Neuro-cognitive effects of mindfulness training in secondary school pupils: a non-randomised controlled trial

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN89407829

Enrollment

180

Registered

2014-03-14

Start date

2014-01-07

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2019-09-02

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

6th form adolescents in secondary school education Mental and Behavioural Disorders

Interventions

The mindfulness course is the .b Foundation program, which has been designed by the Mindfulness in School Project (MiSP) research group. It is a school-taught course that our intervention classes will

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1. The participant must be enrolled in 6th Form from one of the four schools included in this project 2. Training group participants must be enrolled in their school?s mindfulness course starting end of January 2014 3. The participant must be able to give informed consent

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: 1. If they do not speak English or Welsh 2. Current neurological problems, psychiatric problems, and current use of medication that could influence performance, would all exclude participants from participation in ERP testing

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
1. Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer & Toney, 2006) 2. Computer tasks: The attention task will follow an oddball paradigm with four simple shapes. Participants will be directed to respond (press the spacebar) when the target shape (a blue-coloured diamond, 10% of items) appears on screen. The distracter oddballs (10%) will include another diamond but white in colour, and a novel star shape. The frequent condition (70%) is a larger blue-coloured diamond. There will be three blocks, and in-between blocks participants will be asked to self-report their mind wandering behaviour using a measure designed for the trial (attached with supporting documents). The task takes around 13 minutes to complete. The emotion processing task also using the oddball paradigm, displays emotional faces from the Karolinska database (Lundqvist et al., 1998). The target stimuli to be responded to using the spacebar will be happy (12.5% of items) and sad (12.5% of items) faces, while the frequent condition will be repetitions of one male and one female neutral face. This task can be completed in around 10-minutes. The measures are all being taken at baseline, post-training (2-months), and follow-up (8-months).	—

Measure

Time frame

1. Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer & Toney, 2006) 2. Computer tasks: The attention task will follow an oddball paradigm with four simple shapes. Participants will be directed to respond (press the spacebar) when the target shape (a blue-coloured diamond, 10% of items) appears on screen. The distracter oddballs (10%) will include another diamond but white in colour, and a novel star shape. The frequent condition (70%) is a larger blue-coloured diamond. There will be three blocks, and in-between blocks participants will be asked to self-report their mind wandering behaviour using a measure designed for the trial (attached with supporting documents). The task takes around 13 minutes to complete. The emotion processing task also using the oddball paradigm, displays emotional faces from the Karolinska database (Lundqvist et al., 1998). The target stimuli to be responded to using the spacebar will be happy (12.5% of items) and sad (12.5% of items) faces, while the frequent condition will be repetitions of one male and one female neutral face. This task can be completed in around 10-minutes. The measures are all being taken at baseline, post-training (2-months), and follow-up (8-months).

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Secondary

Measure	Time frame
1. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983) 2. Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ; Spreng, McKinnon, Mar, & Levine, 2009) 3. Meta-cognitions Questionnaire - Adolescent Version (MCQ-A; Cartwright-Hatton et al., 2004) 4. The World Health Organisation, Well-Being Index 5-item version (WHO-5; Bech, Gudex, & Johansen, 1996) 5. General Health Questionnaire 12-item version (GHQ-12; Goldberg & Williams, 1988) 6. EQ-5D-5L (EQ-5D; EuroQol Group, 2008) 7. Time Spent in Mindfulness Practice questionnaire (for training group only, designed for the study) 8. Acceptability questionnaire (for training group only, designed for the study) The measures are all being taken at baseline, post-training (2-months), and follow-up (8-months).	—

Measure

Time frame

1. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983) 2. Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ; Spreng, McKinnon, Mar, & Levine, 2009) 3. Meta-cognitions Questionnaire - Adolescent Version (MCQ-A; Cartwright-Hatton et al., 2004) 4. The World Health Organisation, Well-Being Index 5-item version (WHO-5; Bech, Gudex, & Johansen, 1996) 5. General Health Questionnaire 12-item version (GHQ-12; Goldberg & Williams, 1988) 6. EQ-5D-5L (EQ-5D; EuroQol Group, 2008) 7. Time Spent in Mindfulness Practice questionnaire (for training group only, designed for the study) 8. Acceptability questionnaire (for training group only, designed for the study) The measures are all being taken at baseline, post-training (2-months), and follow-up (8-months).

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Countries

United Kingdom

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026