AUTHOR=Joss Diane , Khan Alaptagin , Lazar Sara W. , Teicher Martin H. 

TITLE=Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Self-Compassion and Psychological Health Among Young Adults With a History of Childhood Maltreatment

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02373

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02373

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Individuals who were maltreated during childhood are faced with increased risks for developing various psychological symptoms that are particularly resistant to traditional treatments. This pilot study investigated the effects of a mindfulness based behavioral intervention for young adults with a childhood maltreatment history.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>This study looked at self-report psychological questionnaires from 20 subjects (5 males) before and after a mindfulness-based behavioral intervention, compared to 18 subjects (6 males) in the waiting list control group (age range 22–29); all subjects experienced mild-to-moderate childhood maltreatment. We analyzed changes in stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness and self-compassion related to the intervention with linear mixed effects models; we also analyzed the relationships among questionnaire score changes with partial correlation analyses and mediation analysis.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Linear mixed effects model analyses revealed significant group by time interaction on stress (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01), anxiety (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05), and self-compassion (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01), with the mindfulness group having significant reduction in stress and anxiety (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01), and significant increase in mindfulness (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05) and self-compassion (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001). Partial correlation analyses showed that among all subjects from both groups, changes in mindfulness positively correlated with changes in self-compassion (<italic>r</italic> = 0.578, <italic>p</italic> = 0.001), which negatively correlated with changes in depression (<italic>r</italic> = −0.374, <italic>p</italic> = 0.05) and anxiety (<italic>r</italic> = −0.395, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). Changes in self-compassion mediated, in part, the relationship between changes in mindfulness and changes in anxiety (average causal mediation effect = −4.721, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05). We observed a dose-dependent effect of the treatment, i.e., the number of intervention sessions attended were negatively correlated with changes in stress (<italic>r</italic> = −0.674, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01), anxiety (<italic>r</italic> = −0.580, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01), and depression (<italic>r</italic> = −0.544, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05), after controlling for the individual differences in childhood maltreatment severity.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Our results suggest that, to some extent, the mindfulness-based intervention can be helpful for improving self-compassion and psychological health among young adults with a childhood maltreatment history.</p></sec><sec><title>Clinical Trial Registration</title><p><ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.ClinicalTrials.gov</ext-link>, identifier NCT02447744.</p></sec>