Mindfulness in young people: is it really effective?

After the spectacular rise of Mindfulness in the last decade, there are many investigations generated with the purpose of verifying its effectiveness in an increasing number of areas on physical and mental health of the being human.

Thus, Mindfulness has spread from the original medical practice (application in patients with chronic pain and cancer) to the different aspects of psychology, such as clinical, organizational/business, educational or those related to the field of sport, mostly.

Centering the focus of attention on the area of ​​education and on the application of the Mindfulness techniques in children and adolescents, let us see how the efficacy of this type of intervention can be verified by presenting the findings obtained from two recent meta-analysis papers.

• Related article: "What is Mindfulness? The 7 answers to your questions"

What is a meta-analysis?

A meta-analysis is a scientific and statistical work that brings together a large group of investigations carried out on the same subject in order to analyze them jointly. Thus, it could be said that a meta-analysis would be equivalent to a review of all the published literature that, by way of summary, compares the scientific rigor of all the studies in their entirety.

Thus, the validity and reliability of a meta-analysis is very high and provides data with greater consistency, greater statistical power and greater precision in relation to all the variables that may be playing a significant role in the results because the experimental population samples (the groups of subjects that participate) are very spacious.

In addition, it allows us to observe if there are methodological issues in the studies that may be conditioning the data obtained in them.

The effectiveness of Mindfulness in young people

The results of the two indicated meta-analyses, found in recent databases, both of international origin (Germany and USA respectively) will be presented below. on the efficacy of Mindfulness techniques in the child and adolescent population.

• You may be interested in: "5 Mindfulness exercises to improve your emotional well-being"

Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Schools

In the meta-analysis prepared by Zenner et al. (2014) used the selection of publications made in 12 databases and through contact with expert figures in the field in question. 24 investigations were taken, of which 13 were published and 9 of them had comparative measurements between the experimental group and the control group. Thus, the sample relative to the first group amounted to 1348 students and the second to 876 students.

The comparative analysis of these works was complex since the methodology, objectives and data analysis carried out for each one of them was very heterogeneous. From an initial total of the 42 papers initially found, the following inclusion criteria were applied to carry out the meta-analysis:

• The interventions were based on mindfulness content.

• The implementation of the program was carried out in the school.

• The students belong to courses located between 1st and 12th grade.

• The results presented were quantitative.

After applying these criteria, 24 of the 42 initial articles were selected. The components of the interventions carried out in the 24 finalist studies included mainly: breathing observation, psychoeducation and group discussions. The areas that were assessed together were cognitive performance, emotional problems, stress and coping, and resilience.

Results

The results yielded a strongly positive correlation in increased academic performance; moderately significant (although significant enough) in resilience and stress reduction; small but significant correlation in the resilience variable; and small and not significant for measures of emotional problems.

Thus, this review concludes that the greatest benefits occur in the area of ​​the cognitive domain although it also seems to influence (with less intensity) the level of stress, coping with and recovery from adverse situations.

Study quality assessment

Regarding the assessment of the scientific rigor indicated by the researchers, among the strengths of this review it can be highlighting the breadth in the search of the works carried out on this topic to date, the use of databases and the Inclusion criteria have allowed an exhaustive and complete compilation of existing publications up to the start date of the study. meta-analysis.

Finally, the text proposes the need to carry out interventions aimed at the teaching team in order to provide them with the necessary training on these contents and thus facilitate greater integration by the students who receive these Mindfulness programs.

However, in reference to the limitations that it presents, those responsible for the text recall the heterogeneity among the studies included in the review, so the results of the review should be taken as orientative. Thus, the implementation and typology of specific contents of each one of the interventions based on Mindfulness that have been carried out in each of the schools present insufficient uniformity, which makes it difficult to fully compare objective.

Finally, it is also noted that the samples that make up the reviewed studies are not very large, with which it follows that the results are provisional and should be supported by further evaluations.

• Related article: "Educational psychology: definition, concepts and theories"

Mindfulness interventions with young people: a meta-analysis

In the work of Zoogman et al. (2014) is the first to shed light on the review of studies published between 2004 and 2011 in which mindfulness programs have been applied. in population located within the vital stage of youth (under 18 years of age).

Prior to exposing the results obtained, it is worth highlighting the data provided in the introductory part of the text. since it synthesizes at a quantitative level the state of development of Mindfulness research in the child population and/or youth. More specifically, the authors mention that there are very few studies that have taken subjects of adolescent age without a clinical diagnosis as an experimental sample.

Thus, the works that have attempted to prove the efficacy of mindfulness in this age group have been based on groups with learning difficulties and various disorders. In addition, it is indicated that the age range most studied covers from preschool to high school, focusing on the school population.

On the other hand, the variables that have appeared most popularly in the analyzed publications refer to academic performance, social skills (Beauchemin et al. 2008), stress and anxiety level (Liehr and Diaz 2010), depression (Mendelson et al., 2010), aggressive behavior (Singh et al. 2011a, b) and substance abuse (Bootzin and Stevens 2005; Britton et al. 2010).

Methodology

The texts were extracted, in this case, from articles in an English-speaking magazine. After filtering the works through some inclusion criteria, 20 investigations were selected, in which that it was not possible to discriminate according to different sub-populations due to the paucity of data collected until the date. The objectives of this meta-analysis are aimed at evaluating:

• What is the overall effect of the interventions based on mindfulness in youth?

• That treatment moderating factors (structuring, recipients, clinical/non-clinical sample, duration of treatment, frequency of sessions, etc.) are the most effective?

• ¿What results and what level of effectiveness Has it been obtained in the target sample (psychological symptoms, attention, general functioning of the individual) after the intervention through mindfulness?

Results

The results derived from the statistical data analysis procedures show that the interventions based on mindfulness studied in the young population present a small effect compared to the efficacy of other alternative interventions, although they significantly exceed the effect of the control groups considered.

When clinical samples have been observed, the effect has been considered moderate and has tripled in magnitude in non-clinical samples. All this seems to indicate that mindfulness may be particularly beneficial in clinical populations.

A single variable was substantial and provided relevant results: clinical sample vs. non-clinical; the rest, such as frequency, duration, frequency of sessions, age of the sample, size of the sample, sex of the sample, etc., did not yield differential data. However, a substantial effect was found in the measures of the psychological symptoms presented, much greater than in other types of results such as attention or the general functioning of the individual, etc

However, the meta-analysis does state that meditation has specifically been shown to be effective. in the ability to concentrate in adolescents (for example Baijal et al., 2011 among many others), although this review did not find a great correlation between both variables, as has happened with respect to the symptomatology variable clinic. Even so, the low number of publications included in the meta-analysis and their heterogeneity indicates that what was found should be valued with caution.

Bibliographic references:

• Zenner, C., Herrnleben-Kurz S. and Walach, H. (2014). Mindfulness-based interventions in schools—a systematic review and meta-analys. Institute for Transcultural Health Studies, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt Oder (Germany). June 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 603, Frontiers in Psychology.

• Zoogman, Goldberg S. B., Hoyt, W. T. & Miller, L. (2014) Mindfulness Interventions with Youth: A Meta-Analysis. Mindfulness, Springer Science (New York).