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Mindfulness-based interventions with youth: A comprehensive meta-analysis of group-design studies.

Journal of school psychology
August 1, 2017
David A Klingbeil et al. (8 authors)
Journal ArticleMeta-AnalysisHuman Study
Study Details

Study Goal

The researchers aimed to synthesize the treatment effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) in youth by analyzing 76 studies to determine overall efficacy and moderating factors.

Results Summary

MBIs showed small treatment effects in pre-post and controlled designs, with larger effects observed at follow-up. Moderator analyses found no meaningful relationship between intervention setting/dosage and outcomes, but MBIs had moderate effects on mindfulness in controlled studies.

Population

Youth (6121 participants across 76 studies)

Effective Dosage

Not specified

Duration

Not specified

Interactions

None mentioned

Extracted Claims (6)
InterventionDirectionEndpointPopulationDosageImpactClaim #
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
treatment effects
youth
g=0.305, SE=0.039
were associated with small treatment effects
#1
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
treatment effects
youth
g=0.322, SE=0.040
were associated with small treatment effects
#2
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
treatment effects
youth
g=0.462, SE=0.118
treatment effects were larger at follow-up than post-treatment
#3
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
treatment effects
youth
g=0.402, SE=0.081
treatment effects were larger at follow-up than post-treatment
#4
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
therapeutic process domains and therapeutic outcome domains
youth
-
Small, positive results were generally observed
#5
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)
increase
mindfulness
youth
g=0.510
were associated with moderate effects
#6
Abstract

The treatment effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) with youth were synthesized from 76 studies involving 6121 participants. A total of 885 effect sizes were aggregated using meta-regression with robust variance estimation. Overall, MBIs were associated with small treatment effects in studies using pre-post (g=0.305, SE=0.039) and controlled designs (g=0.322, SE=0.040). Treatment effects were measured after a follow-up period in 24 studies (n=1963). Results demonstrated that treatment effects were larger at follow-up than post-treatment in pre-post (g=0.462, SE=0.118) and controlled designs (g=0.402, SE=0.081). Moderator analyses indicated that intervention setting and intervention dosage were not meaningfully related to outcomes after controlling for study design quality. With that said, the between-study heterogeneity in the intercept-only models was consistently small, thus limiting the amount of variance for the moderators to explain. A series of exploratory analyses were used to investigate the differential effectiveness of MBIs across four therapeutic process domains and seven therapeutic outcome domains. Small, positive results were generally observed across the process and outcome domains. Notably, MBIs were associated with moderate effects on the process variable of mindfulness in controlled studies (n=1108, g=0.510). Limitations and directions for future research and practice are discussed.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
AdolescentChildHumansMindfulnessResearch DesignYoung Adult
Study Links
Quality Scores
SafetyNot Assessed
Efficacy72/10
Quality85/10
Citation Metrics
Total Citations85
Citations/Year10.6
Relative Citation Ratio5.76
NIH Percentile94.5%
Research Impact Scores
APT Score0.95
Weight Score2.29
Normalized Score0.66
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