Improve Anxiety and Depression with Online Mindfulness Training
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“So many people who want and would benefit from mindfulness meditation training do not ever receive it because of schedules, location, and / or an aversion to being in live groups. Offering mindfulness training in an Internet format allows these people to actually receive the training benefits. We are lucky to live in a world where such alternative formats are available.” – Helané Wahbeh
Mindfulness training has been shown through extensive research to be effective in improving physical and psychological health and particularly with the physical and psychological reactions to stress. They have been shown to be very helpful in treating anxiety and depression. The vast majority of the mindfulness training techniques, however, require a certified trained therapist. This results in costs that many clients can’t afford. In addition, the participants must be available to attend multiple sessions at particular scheduled times that may or may not be compatible with their busy schedules and at locations that may not be convenient.
As an alternative, mindfulness training programs have been developed to be implemented over the internet. These have tremendous advantages in decreasing costs, making training schedules much more flexible, and eliminating the need to go repeatedly to specific locations. But, the question arises as to the effectiveness of these programs in inducing mindfulness and improving the treatment of anxiety and depression. In today’s Research News article “). Online mindfulness-enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety and depression: Outcomes of a pilot trial.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6112099/ ), Kladnitski and colleagues addressed this issue.
They recruited participants through social media who were diagnosed with either generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and/or major depressive disorder. They completed a 7-week online program of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with mindfulness training. CBT that is designed to address and change maladaptive thought patterns that lead to psychological problems and includes behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, and graded exposure. They added online mindfulness training also to the program. The entire program was similar to the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) program. The participants were measured online before, during, and after the 7-week program and 3 months later for psychiatric symptoms, psychiatric distress, depression, anxiety, mental well-being, disability, worry, rumination, experiential avoidance, emotion regulation, and mindfulness.
They found that engagement in the program was low with only 59% of the original participants completing the 7-week program. All of the measures showed significant improvements with moderate to large effect sizes after training compared to baseline and these improvements persisted 3 months later. So, the 7-week online program or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with mindfulness training reduced the psychological pain and improved the psychological well-being of adults with anxiety or depressive disorders.
These results need to be interpreted with caution because of the high drop out rates. The individuals who were not being helped or even harmed by the program may have dropped out leaving only those participants who were improving. Future work needs to improve retention rates for the treatment to be seen as useful. Also, the lack of an active control condition opens the study up to a large array of potential confounds.
But, it has been well established in a number of well controlled studies that mindfulness improves the symptoms and mental well being of patients with anxiety and depression. The present study simply demonstrates that presentation of the treatment online is similarly effective. By being able to provide the treatment online it greatly reduces costs, makes the treatment more widely available even to remote locations, and makes it convenient for the patients. That is why it is so important to establish its effectiveness of the online program in relieving the suffering of anxiety and depression patients.
So, improve anxiety and depression with online mindfulness training.
“participants who completed the online mindfulness course reported significantly lower levels of perceived stress, depression and anxiety.” – Be Mindful
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Kladnitski, N., Smith, J., Allen, A., Andrews, G., & Newby, J. M. (2018). Online mindfulness-enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety and depression: Outcomes of a pilot trial. Internet Interventions, 13, 41–50. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2018.06.003
Abstract
Transdiagnostic internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapies (iCBT) are effective for treating anxiety and depression, but there is room for improvement. In this study we developed a new Mindfulness-Enhanced iCBT intervention by incorporating formal and informal mindfulness exercises within an existing transdiagnostic iCBT program for mixed depression and anxiety. We examined the acceptability, feasibility, and outcomes of this new program in a sample of 22 adults with anxiety disorders and/or major depression. Participants took part in the 7-lesson clinician-guided online intervention over 14 weeks, and completed measures of distress (K-10), anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), mindfulness (FFMQ) and well-being (WEMBWS) at pre-, mid-, post-treatment, and three months post-treatment. Treatment engagement, satisfaction, and side-effects were assessed. We found large, significant reductions in distress (Hedges g = 1.55), anxiety (g = 1.39), and depression (g = 1.96), and improvements in trait mindfulness (g = 0.98) and well-being (g = 1.26) between baseline and post-treatment, all of which were maintained at follow-up. Treatment satisfaction was high for treatment-completers, with minimal side-effects reported, although adherence was lower than expected (59.1% completed). These findings show that it is feasible to integrate online mindfulness training with iCBT for the treatment of anxiety and depression, but further research is needed to improve adherence. A randomised controlled trial is needed to explore the efficacy of this program.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6112099/