(PS10-41) Taking Care of Yourself: Mindful Self-care Practice and Mental Health Symptoms in a College Latinx Sample

Latinx adults report average risk for anxiety and depression; however, they access mental health care at lower rates than non-Hispanic Whites (Agency for Health Research and Quality: National Healthcare Disparities Report, 2022). Mindfulness and self-care have been associated with well-being and have been proposed as complementary health care to address mental health concerns among adults (Sünbül et al., 2018; Narasimhan et al., 2019). While mindfulness-based interventions are suggested to be feasible and acceptable among Latinx and immigrant populations, self-care practices remain understudied in these populations despite their positive mental health outcomes (Cotter & Jones, 2020; Cook-Cottone & Guyker, 2017). There remains a need to address the treatment gap for Latinx immigrants and investigate potential sources of complementary mental health care to support well-being.

A Latinx collegiate sample (n=234; M_age= 18.97 years, SD = 2.14; 78.6% female, 67.5% second-generation immigrant) from a Hispanic Serving Institution were recruited from October-December 2023 via online recruiting from the Undergraduate Psychology Pool. Participants completed the Standard Mindful Self-Care (MSCS) (Cook-Cottone & Guyker, 2017), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) (Kroenke, Spitzer, & Williams, 2001), and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) (Spitzer et al., 2006) measures. A composite mental health symptoms variable was created using the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. The aims of this study were to 1) Examine if mindful self-care predicts mental health symptoms and 2) Explore whether immigrant generation status moderates this relationship among Latinx adults.
A linear regression was run to predict mental health symptoms from mindful self-care while controlling for age and gender. This resulted in a significant model, F(5, 227) = 5.144, p < .001, R² = .102. Mindful self-care (β = -.674, p = .003) was a significant predictor of mental health symptoms. Moderation analysis was conducted using SPSS’s PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013). The interaction between mindful self-care and immigrant generation status was marginally significant (b = .664, SE = .347, t = 1.91, p = .057), indicating that the relationship between mindful self-care and mental health symptoms was moderated by immigrant generation. The simple slope of mindful self-care and mental health symptoms was significant at the first-generation immigrant status level (b = -1.14, SE = .313, t = -3.65, p < .001) but not at third-generation immigrant status level (b = -.207, SE = .349, t = -.592, p > .05). Mindful self-care negatively predicted mental health symptoms among Latinx adults and was moderated by immigrant generation status. This study contributes to the gap in literature related to Latinx mindful self-care practice. These findings elucidate the importance and viability of exploring complementary mental health care to address diverse mental health needs of Latinx, immigrant populations within research and clinical settings.