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Mindfulness Practice and Stress Following Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: Examining Within-Person and Between-Person Associations with Latent Curve Modeling

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Abstract

Objective

Past studies have documented links between mindfulness practice and stress-related outcomes, but these links have typically been found over the course of treatment and at the between-person level of analysis. Building on past work, the present study aimed to evaluate practice-stress associations after treatment and at the within-person and between-person levels.

Methods

We drew extant data collected from 138 community-recruited adults who had received a standard, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course and were asked to record formal and informal mindfulness practice time daily and complete a self-report measure of stress every 2 months over a 6-month follow-up period. Latent curve modeling was used to test the within-person and between-person components of the relation between practice and stress over the follow-up period.

Results

Results indicated that, at the within-person level, formal practice time from 2 to 4 months after treatment significantly predicted stress levels 4 months after treatment, and formal and informal practice time from 4 to 6 months after treatment significantly predicted stress levels 6 month after treatment. At the between-person level, formal and informal practice times were not significantly related to stress levels over the follow-up period.

Conclusions

Overall, the present findings highlight the potential importance of post-intervention practice and suggest that higher practice engagement 2 to 6 months after MBSR training predicts lower levels of subsequent stress. Results are discussed in the context of mindfulness theory and MBSR training curriculum.

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Funding

ASM was supported by a postdoctoral research training program funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA; T32HP10010). BB was supported by a mid-career research and mentoring career grant from NCCIH (K24AT006543). Funding for the original study came from National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health (NCCIH; R01AT006970).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Andrew S. McClintock, Aleksandra Zgierska & Bruce Barrett

  2. Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Andrew S. McClintock

  3. School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Roger Brown

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Christopher L. Coe

  5. Health Innovation Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Aleksandra Zgierska

Authors
  1. Andrew S. McClintock
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  2. Roger Brown
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  3. Christopher L. Coe
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  4. Aleksandra Zgierska
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  5. Bruce Barrett
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Contributions

ASM designed the study, conducted data analyses, interpreted results, and wrote the paper. RB assisted in designing the study, results interpretation, and editing the paper. CLC assisted in designing the study, results interpretation, and editing the paper. AZ assisted in designing the study, results interpretation, and editing the paper. BB assisted in designing the study, results interpretation, and editing the paper. All authors approved the submitted manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew S. McClintock.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institutional Review Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human participates were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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McClintock, A.S., Brown, R., Coe, C.L. et al. Mindfulness Practice and Stress Following Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: Examining Within-Person and Between-Person Associations with Latent Curve Modeling. Mindfulness 10, 1905–1914 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01159-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01159-x

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