̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Géraldine Dufour

Mindfulness training reduces stress during exam time

cjb250 — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 23:38:22 +0000

While the prevalence of anxiety and depression among first year undergraduates is lower than the general population, it increases to overtake this during their second year. ̽��ֱ��number of students accessing counselling services in the UK grew by 50% from 2010 to 2015, surpassing the growth in the number of students during the same period. There is little consensus as to whether students are suffering more mental disorders, are less resilient than in the past or whether there is less stigma attached to accessing support. Regardless, mental health support services for students are becoming stretched.

Recent years have seen increasing interest in mindfulness, a means of training attention for the purpose of mental wellbeing based on the practice of meditation. There is evidence that mindfulness training can improve symptoms of common mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. However, there is little robust evidence on the effectiveness of mindfulness training in preventing such problems in university students.

“Given the increasing demands on student mental health services, we wanted to see whether mindfulness could help students develop preventative coping strategies,” says Géraldine Dufour Head of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Counselling Service. Dufour is one of the authors of a study that set out to test the effectiveness of mindfulness – the results are published today in ̽��ֱ��Lancet Public Health.

In total, 616 students took part in the study and were randomised across two groups. Both groups were offered access to comprehensive centralised support at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Counselling Service in addition to support available from the university and its colleges, and from health services including the National Health Service.

Half of the cohort (309 students) were also offered the Mindfulness Skills for Students course. This consisted of eight, weekly, face-to-face, group-based sessions based on the course book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, adapted for university students. Students were encouraged to also practice at home, starting at eight minute meditations, and increasing to about 15-25 minutes per day, as well as other mindfulness practices such as a mindful walking and mindful eating. Students in the other half of the cohort were offered their mindfulness training the following year.

̽��ֱ��researchers assessed the impact of the mindfulness training on stress (‘psychological distress’) during the main, annual examination period in May and June 2016, the most stressful weeks for most students. They measured this using the CORE-OM, a generic assessment used in many counselling services.

̽��ֱ��mindfulness course led to lower distress scores after the course and during the exam term compared with students who only received the usual support. Mindfulness participants were a third less likely than other participants to have scores above a threshold commonly seen as meriting mental health support. Distress scores for the mindfulness group during exam time fell below their baselines levels (as measured at the start of the study, before exam time), whereas the students who received the standard support became increasingly stressed as the academic year progressed.

̽��ֱ��researchers also looked at other measures, such as self-reported wellbeing. They found that mindfulness training improved wellbeing during the exam period when compared with the usual support.

“This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods,” says Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, who led the study.

“Students who had been practising mindfulness had distress scores lower than their baseline levels even during exam time, which suggests that mindfulness helps build resilience against stress.”

Professor Peter Jones, also from the Department of Psychiatry, adds: “ ̽��ֱ��evidence is mounting that mindfulness training can help people cope with accumulative stress. While these benefits may be similar to some other preventative methods, mindfulness could be a useful addition to the interventions already delivered by university counselling services. It appears to be popular, feasible, acceptable and without stigma.”

̽��ֱ��team also looked at whether mindfulness had any effect of examination results; however, their findings proved inconclusive.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the National Institute for Health (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England, hosted by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

Reference
Galante, J et al. Effectiveness of providing university students with a mindfulness-based intervention to increase resilience to stress: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Lancet Public Health; 19 December 2017; DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30231-1

Mindfulness training can help support students at risk of mental health problems, concludes a randomised controlled trial carried out by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the most robust study to date to assess mindfulness training for students, and backs up previous studies that suggest it can improve mental health and wellbeing during stressful periods

Julieta Galante

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Students studying

Researcher profile: Dr Julieta Galante

Dr Julieta Galante is a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry. Her interests lie in mental health promotion, particularly the effects of meditation on mental health. She hopes to contribute to the growing number of approaches to preventing mental health problems that do not rely on medication.

“What fascinates me is the idea that you could potentially train your mind to improve your wellbeing and develop yourself as a person,” she says. “It’s not the academic type of mind-training –meditation training is more like embarking on a deep inner-exploration.”

Galante’s research involves studying large numbers of people in real-world settings, such as busy students revising for their exams. It’s a very complex research field, she says: there are many factors, social, psychological and biological, that contribute to an individual’s mental health.

“Our projects are most successful (and enjoyable) when we collaborate with people outside the academic sphere, in this particular project with the Student Counselling Service, ̽��ֱ�� authorities, and the students themselves.”

̽��ֱ��mindfulness trial was ‘blinded’, meaning that the researchers did not know which students (and hence which data) belonged to which group. ̽��ֱ��‘unblinding’ of the results – when they found out whether their trial was successful – was nerve-wracking, she says. “ ̽��ֱ��team statistician didn’t know which group had received mindfulness training and which group was the control. He showed his results to the rest of the team and we could all see that there was a clear difference between the groups, but we didn’t know whether this meant really good or really bad news for mindfulness training. When the results were then unveiled, we all laughed with relief!”

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Mindfulness study to look at benefits in helping build resilience to stress among university students

sc604 — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 10:20:12 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, which could see over 500 students receive mindfulness training, aims to measure its effectiveness in managing stress amongst students, particularly at exam time, and whether it helps in other factors such as sleep and wellbeing. It will also explore whether the training affects students’ use of mental health treatment and support services.

Mindfulness involves the use of meditation techniques and self-awareness. Originally developed to help patients with chronic pain cope with their condition, it is now a recognised – and clinically-proven – way of helping individuals cope with depression, anxiety and stress.

Géraldine Dufour, Head of Counselling at the ̽��ֱ��, says: “ ̽��ֱ�� life can be stressful at time for students, as they develop the skills to live and study independently. Developing resilience and the skills to cope with stress is key so that students can make the most of life in the collegiate university and when they leave. ̽��ֱ��university counselling service offers many opportunities for students to develop their skills through an extensive programme of workshops, groups and individual counselling. We believe mindfulness could be a powerful tool to help them, in addition to the other counselling services we offer. This research project will help us determine if mindfulness is a good use of resources.”

From October, undergraduates and postgraduates at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will be invited to register for a free, eight-week mindfulness training course called Mindfulness Skills for Students, which will be led by Dr Elizabeth English, the ̽��ֱ��’s Mindfulness Practitioner. ̽��ֱ��course is a group-based training programme based on the course book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman, and adapted for Cambridge students. It consists of one 90-minute session and seven 75-minute sessions. Participants are also requested to do some home practice and reading every week.

Students will be allocated at random to two groups – one to receive training immediately, the second to be deferred twelve months. All students – both those who take the course and those whose training is deferred – will record their stress levels using a smartphone app during the exam period, while activity monitors will record their physical activity and sleep patterns.

“ ̽��ֱ��academic year provides a very real ‘natural experiment’,” says Dr Julieta Galante from the Department of Psychiatry, who will carry out the research together with Professor Peter Jones. “Students receive training, practice at home, then face a ‘pressure point’ – their exams. We hope that our study will help us answer the question of whether the provision of mindfulness training, which we know to be effective in other settings, can help students throughout the year and particularly at exam time.”

̽��ֱ��level of support available to students at Cambridge is unparalleled in most other universities. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Counselling Service, one of the best funded in the country, includes counsellors as well as mental health advisors and supplements the support available to students from specialist staff in the colleges such as college nurses and chaplains. In the previous academic year, over 1,500 people were seen for counselling – this represents around one in 12 of the student population. Its Mindfulness Skills for Students programme is believed to be the largest such programme in any university.

Students wishing to register for the evaluation study of the Mindfulness Training Programme should visit the mindfulness website or email mindfulstudentstudy@medschl.cam.ac.uk.

Students at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge are to be offered free, eight-week mindfulness training to help build resilience against stress as part of a new research project launched to coincide with the start of term.

̽��ֱ�� life can be stressful at time for students, as they develop the skills to live and study independently

Géraldine Dufour

Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. Photo by Sir Cam.

General Admission 2012

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes