(PS2-1) A 5-week Online Mindfulness Program for College Students

Participants consisted of college-aged students recruited from a university located in the Southeast United States. After participants were recruited (N=79) they were randomly selected to either be in the first 5-week intervention (experimental group, n =39), or in a wait list control group (WLC, N =40). This WLC group participated in the 5-week intervention period after the first intervention group completed their 5-week program. Through the use of a Wix website which was created by the PI, participants had access to mindfulness practices. These mindfulness practices were from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1990). During the first 5-week period of the study, the participants in the WLC group were instructed to not do any mindfulness. Once the first intervention group completed their five-week period of mindfulness practices (weeks 0-5), the participants in the WLC group then started their mindfulness practices over a 5-week period (weeks 5-10).

The participants completed assessments which evaluated their ratings of mindfulness, test anxiety, anxiety, stress, and depression. All participants were given self-report measures a total of three times throughout the 10-week period; at the start of the program, at 5-weeks), and at the end of the program (10-weeks).

During the mindfulness intervention participants showed significant increases in their ratings on overall mindfulness and significant increases in sub-scales of mindfulness. The control group did not show any significant changes in their mindfulness ratings.

It is within reason to believe that the use of mindfulness practices via an online platform can have positive on increasing an individual’s levels of mindfulness. The results also illuminate the idea that self-directed mindfulness practices could be useful for college students, rather than attending daily or weekly mindfulness group appointments. While this can be useful in the community, it is important to acknowledge that college students have the option to utilize mindfulness practices on their own if they are having trouble with test anxiety or general anxiety. Further research on these preliminary results should be conducted using a multiple-campus setting.