Mindful Positive Reappraisal: a Daily Diary Randomized Controlled Trial

Ekaterina Pogrebtsova

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1

Treatments: Behavioral: Self-Administered Event Recall Exercise; Behavioral: Self-Administered Mindful-Reappraisal Exercise; Behavioral: Self-Administered Reappraisal-Only Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02680444

11NV038

Details and patient eligibility

About

Brief and cost-effective interventions teaching emotion regulation techniques can be feasibly applied to promote mental health in University students. The tools of mindfulness (i.e., objective awareness and acceptance) and positive reappraisal (i.e., positive re-evaluation of negative events) can mutually benefit one another to promote well-being. The current study explored the effects of a randomly-assigned Mindful-Reappraisal intervention (n=36) compared to Reappraisal-Only (n=34) and an active control (n=36) on university students' daily affect over five days. Time by condition interactions were analyzed with planned contrasts and multilevel growth modelling.

Full description

The University student lifestyle can lead to heightened stress, anxiety, and burnout. To promote mental health, brief and cost-effective interventions teaching beneficial emotion regulation techniques can not only counteract the negative but also foster positive functioning. The tools of mindfulness (i.e., objective awareness and acceptance) and positive reappraisal (i.e., positive re-evaluation of negative events) can mutually benefit one another to promote well-being. However, there is currently little research testing the viability of brief, self-administered interventions combining training of mindfulness and positive reappraisal. The current study explored the effects of a randomly-assigned Mindful-Reappraisal intervention (n=36) compared to Reappraisal-Only (n=34) and an active control (n=36) on university students' daily affect over five days. Time by condition interactions were analyzed with planned contrasts and multilevel growth modelling.

Enrollment: 129 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Undergraduate students

Exclusion criteria

• Not undergraduate students

Trial design

129 participants in 3 patient groups

Reappraisal-Only Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants were instructed to independently practice the Self-Administered Reappraisal-Only Exercise in the evening for five days. First, participants recalled a negative event from that day and then followed the positive reappraisal instructions available online. This involved thinking about how one could grow, learn or benefit from the negative event in any way possible.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self-Administered Reappraisal-Only Exercise

Mindful-Reappraisal Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants were instructed to independently practice the Self-Administered Mindful-Reappraisal Exercise in the evening for five days. First, participants recalled a negative event from that day and then followed the Mindful-Reappraisal instructions available online. This involved thinking about the negative event in an objective, non-judgmental way, then following the Reappraisal-Only instructions, and closing off with a brief mindfulness breathing technique.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self-Administered Mindful-Reappraisal Exercise

Event Recall Active Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants were instructed to independently practice the Self-Administered Event Recall Exercise in the evening for five days. In this condition, participants were only instructed to recall a negative event from that day with no reappraisal exercise.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self-Administered Event Recall Exercise