Objective: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a
structured group program that employs mindfulness meditation to
alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and
psychiatric disorders. The program, nonreligious and nonesoteric,
is based upon a systematic procedure to develop enhanced
awareness of moment-to-moment experience of perceptible mental
processes. The approach assumes that greater awareness will
provide more veridical perception, reduce negative affect and
improve vitality and coping. In the last two decades, a number
of research reports appeared that seem to support many of these
claims. We performed a comprehensive review and meta-analysis
of published and unpublished studies of health-related studies
related to MBSR. Methods: Sixty-four empirical studies were
found, but only 20 reports met criteria of acceptable quality or
relevance to be included in the meta-analysis. Reports were
excluded due to (1) insufficient information about interventions,
(2) poor quantitative health evaluation, (3) inadequate statistical
analysis, (4) mindfulness not being the central component of
intervention, or (5) the setting of intervention or sample
composition deviating too widely from the health-related MBSR
program. Acceptable studies covered a wide spectrum of clinical
populations (e.g., pain, cancer, heart disease, depression, and
anxiety), as well as stressed nonclinical groups. Both controlled and
observational investigations were included. Standardized measures
of physical and mental well-being constituted the dependent
variables of the analysis. Results: Overall, both controlled and
uncontrolled studies showed similar effect sizes of approximately
0.5 ( P < .0001) with homogeneity of distribution. Conclusion:
Although derived from a relatively small number of studies, these
results suggest that MBSR may help a broad range of individuals to
cope with their clinical and nonclinical problems.
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