title: Staying Well: A Follow Up of a 5-Week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Programme for a Range of Psychological Issues.
abstract: 112 women and 37 men, with an average age of 50 years were referred for MBSR training with a range of chronic psychological issues. All participants completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (Tennant et al. in Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 5:63, 2007) before and after the mindfulness training programme. A significant overall effect of pre/post training was found and this difference was not related to a specific disorder. The results suggest that a 'brief' dose of MBSR can have a positive impact on measures of well-being in a manner that is not related to patient characteristics. A follow-up of 28 participants confirms that participation in the 5-week Living Mindfully MBSR programme significantly enhances psychological well-being immediately after training, and this benefit is maintained up to 4 years after training. Continued practice in mindfulness meditation showed an insignificant relationship to well-being scores at follow up. Qualitative data suggest that the 5 week MBSR is an effective means of developing emotion regulation and psychological well-being.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. melanie.mitchell@northumbria.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Living Mindfully, Durham, UK. enquiries@livingmindfully.co.uk.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heads
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D008875:Middle Aged; D064866:Mindfulness / Q000379:methods; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy*; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Anxiety; Depression; Mental health; Mindfulness