Explore the vast range of titles available.

There is a high need for accessible avenues for improving mental health among emerging adults, particularly on college campuses. Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) is a promising avenue for reducing mental health symptoms, but initial discomforts associated with MBI may cause symptoms to fluctuate before decreasing, which presents a barrier to engagement with mindfulness on a daily basis. Consistent mindfulness practice is key for forming habits related to MBI, and engagement with mindfulness at home, including between intervention sessions, is an important predictor of mental health outcomes. Research suggests that mental health symptoms may serve as barriers to their own treatment. Thus, it is important to understand how mental health symptom levels impact adherence to treatment protocols. To improve understanding of symptom-specific barriers to treatment and engagement with mindfulness, the present study collected daily diary surveys about engagement with mindfulness and mental health symptoms from a sample of 62 adults recruited to participate in a six-week mindfulness intervention. We explored mental health symptoms as a predictor of engagement with MBI at the mean level and whether within-person variability in symptoms predicted same-day or time-lagged changes in engagement via mixed-effects associations. Using heterogeneous location scale models, we further explored whether erraticism in either mental health symptoms or engagement with mindfulness predicted the other and if outcomes of the mindfulness intervention were homogeneous among subjects. Results showed that bi-directional and time-lagged associations exist between symptoms and engagement, indicating that there is a nuanced temporal and reciprocal relationship between engagement with mindfulness and mental health symptoms. Daily within-person elevations in engagement with mindfulness were associated with concurrent improvements in mental health but prospective increases in mental health symptoms. We also found that higher engagement (over personal averages) was not consistently associated with improvements in mental health across the sample but was instead associated with greater heterogeneity in outcomes. We also found that increases in mental health symptoms (over personal averages), as well as higher average levels of mental health symptoms, were both associated with lower levels of engagement in the mindfulness treatment protocol.

Objectives Past studies indicate that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) promote mental health for adolescents. However, most adolescents with mental health vulnerabilities do not have access to an MBI. The goal of the current study was to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of scaling out an MBI through a mentoring program targeted at adolescents experiencing multiple adversities. Method We conducted a randomized feasibility trial comparing mentoring alone to mentoring plus MBI. Assessments occurred at baseline and post-intervention, including reports gathered from adolescents and their parents. Results The addition of an MBI to the mentoring program did not affect attendance, but was associated with small increases in overall program acceptability. Additionally, adolescents who received mentoring plus MBI showed larger improvements in two aspects of emotion regulation (emotional clarity and managing impulsive behaviors during distress), attention problems, externalizing behaviors, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. In contrast, adolescents who received mentoring alone demonstrated more favorable change in another dimension of emotion regulation (accessing effective emotion regulation strategies) and internalizing symptoms. Many but not all of these effects were more pronounced when focusing specifically on older, high school–aged adolescents, compared to the effects observed in the entire sample of 10–18-year-olds. Conclusions Results suggest that it is feasible, acceptable, and potentially effective to expand MBI via mentoring programs for adolescents at high risk for mental health symptoms. Preregistration This study was not preregistered.

The existing data on the benefits of mentoring programs for adolescent participants are promising, though often unclear in terms of who benefits the most and why (Raposa et al. 2019). In the literature, there tends to be an agreement that risk is likely to moderate program effectiveness to a certain extent, but there is inconsistency about whether greater risk strengthens or weakens program effects (Herrera et al., 2013; Weiler & Taussig, 2017). An important outcome to consider are developmental assets because the negative outcomes of youth risk can be mitigated through the presence of such factors (Scales & Leffert, 1999). The present study seeks to further investigate whether the benefits (in terms of developmental assets) that youth receive from participating in a therapeutic mentoring program differ by their individual level of risk-exposure prior to entering the program.Participants were 676 youth (11-18 years old) who participated in the mentoring program Campus Connections (Haddock et al., 2017) for at least one semester. Each participant was paired with a trained undergraduate mentor and attended four-hour long sessions hosted one night a week for 12 weeks. Each session consisted of four components: one-on-one free time between mentor and mentee, mentor-provided school support, “family style” meals, and prosocial group activities (e.g., games, crafts, team sports). Mentees completed the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP, Search Institute, 2004) before and after completing the program; primary caregivers completed a baseline youth risk assessment.Generalized estimating equation models were used to test the moderating effect of youth risk on change in youth developmental assets (controlling for gender, age, and ethnicity). Time and baseline risk were each significant predictors of developmental assets, such that there were significant increases in assets overall (b = 7.18, se = 1.15, p < .05) and those with higher levels of baseline risk reported lower levels of overall assets (b = -1.51 se = 0.25, p < .05). Whether change varied based on risk was tested via multiplicative interaction between time (baseline vs. post-test) and risk (mean centered) to predict levels of developmental assets. Risk was not a significant moderator, implying that on average youth gain developmental assets in a mentoring program regardless of baseline risk. These findings suggest that mentoring programs can benefit youth with a range of risk exposure.

Recently, scientists have advocated for the use of multi-modal adaptive supplements to mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) to boost program efficacy. A theoretical mechanism underlying MBI benefits is that high mindfulness buffers against mental health problems in the face of stressors. We investigated whether a multi-modal supplement to an MBI boosts mindfulness stress buffering effects relative to a standard MBI and an active control using a pilot randomized controlled trial within an existing mentoring program, Campus Connections. Participants were 98 mentors and mentees randomized to mentoring alone, MBI with mentoring, or MBI with multi-modal supplement and mentoring. Participants completed daily diaries for 6 days at baseline and program end to assess daily stressors, mindfulness, and mental health symptoms. Analyses focused on within-person intraindividual variability. Results indicated that there was no evidence for mindfulness stress buffering for any condition at baseline. Those who received mentoring alone continued to show no evidence of mindfulness stress buffering at posttest. In contrast, at posttest those who received MBI with mentoring displayed some evidence for mindfulness stress buffering in that their mental health concerns were buffered from deleterious effects of stress only on days when they maintained higher than average mindfulness. At posttest, participants who received MBI with the multi-modal supplement and mentoring displayed stronger mindfulness stress buffering effects, as daily stress was no longer related to their mental health symptoms. This study provides initial support that a multi-modal supplement to an MBI can boost mindfulness stress buffering effects.

Objectives Effects of mindfulness-based interventions on mental health outcomes are typically small to moderate in magnitude. Outside of the mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) literature, there is evidence that supplements to traditional group interventions (delivered in people’s daily lives, often via cell phone) increase intervention efficacy. We have developed the first supplement delivered via cell phone to an MBI and, in the current study, provide a preliminary test of the extent to which this supplement (and its individual components) strengthens intervention effects on mindful attention, self-compassion, and mental health. We also examine whether the addition of the supplement alters feasibility. Method Participants were 50 university students who attended at least one session of a 6-week MBI and completed baseline and post-test assessments. Participants were randomly assigned to receive varying intervention support between sessions (i.e., no support, only intervention messages; only just-in-time support during stress; both messages and stress support), and provided baseline and post-test reports of mindful attention, self-compassion, and mental health; at the end of the program, they rated intervention acceptability and facilitator quality. Facilitators recorded attendance Results Compared to participants who received no support, participants who received any support between sessions displayed greater increases in mindful attention and fewer increases in mental health symptoms. Support between sessions predicted greater attendance at group sessions, but additional support did not affect intervention acceptability. Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence that incorporating supplements to MBIs via cell phones between group meeting sessions may be a successful strategy to increase intervention effectiveness. Preregistration This study is not preregistered.