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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1449629
This article is part of the Research Topic Between Emotional Regulation and Dysregulation: Perspectives, Interventions, Tools and Technologies for Psychological Well-Being View all 8 articles

Mindfulness and Mental Health: the Importance of a Clinical Intervention to Prevent the Effects of a Traumatic Event. A pilot study

Provisionally accepted
Cristina Liviana Caldiroli Cristina Liviana Caldiroli 1*Rossella Procaccia Rossella Procaccia 2Attà Negri Attà Negri 3Andrea Mangiatordi Andrea Mangiatordi 1Silvia Sarandacchi Silvia Sarandacchi 1Alessandro Antonietti Alessandro Antonietti 4Marco Castiglioni Marco Castiglioni 1
  • 1 Department of Human Sciences for Education "Riccardo Massa", University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
  • 2 Faculty of Psychology, eCampus University, Milano, Italy
  • 3 Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy
  • 4 Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Milan, Milan, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Numerous research studies show that mindfulness can mitigate the negative impact of trauma on mental health by reducing symptoms of anxiety, mediating the relationship between trauma exposure and mental health, and treating symptoms resulting from traumatic events. During the Covid-19 pandemic, which was considered a traumatic event, the well-being of adults and children was severely compromised. Although children seem less vulnerable to the physical effects of the virus, this does not seem to be true for the psychological effects. Indeed, a prolonged period of loss of family activities and routines can have a negative impact on the mental health of children and adolescents. To investigate how mindfulness can help preschool children cope with the effects of Covid-19, a study was conducted on 46 children aged 4-5 years. The programme, based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and adapted to the age of the participants, consisted of eight weekly 45-minute sessions. Qualitative and quantitative results showed positive feedback, indicating that mindfulness helps children make sense of their experiences and achieve functional post-traumatic growth. This approach is seen as a challenge to guide children towards the restoration of psychological well-being, which is essential for good psychological balance.

    Keywords: mindfulness, Positive Psychology, wellbeing, COVID-19, pandemic, Trauma, Clinical intervention

    Received: 15 Jun 2024; Accepted: 26 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Caldiroli, Procaccia, Negri, Mangiatordi, Sarandacchi, Antonietti and Castiglioni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Cristina Liviana Caldiroli, Department of Human Sciences for Education "Riccardo Massa", University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.