Presentatie Masterthese - Chris Bonnar - Klinische Psychologie

An often-reported outcome for people attending an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is an increase in mindfulness, which is likely achieved through the practice of mindful meditation during the course. Other notable outcomes of an MBSR course are an increase in positive affect and well-being, and a decrease in stress, negative affect and general psychiatric symptoms. Once learned, mindfulness can be practiced without guidance from a teacher, and like any newly learned skill, further practice will help to improve the skill. But what happens to levels of mindfulness once an MBSR course has been completed? There is little research in this area, especially regarding how mindfulness levels could be maintained (or increased) after participating in an MBSR course. One way of further developing mindfulness skills is to practice using a smartphone mindfulness app. In a cluster randomized control trial we examine the effect of providing information on mindfulness apps and weekly reminders to use a mindfulness app on levels of mindfulness and formal mindfulness practice at one and four months after completion of an 8-week MBSR course. Our hypothesis is that levels of mindfulness and time spent on formal mindfulness practice will be higher for those participants that received information on mindfulness apps and weekly reminders to use a mindfulness app, compared to a control group that did not receive this information. Moreover, given the positive effects of mindfulness on well-being and general psychiatric symptomology as noted above, we further hypothesize that well-being will be higher in the experimental group than in the control group and general psychiatric symptomology will be lower in the experimental group than in the control group.