A preliminary evaluation on the effectiveness of a universal school-based mindfulness intervention to enhance resilience in adolescents

Abstract

Background: Mindfulness in schools programs are increasing in use globally and in New Zealand. Mindfulness training is hypothesised to influence resilience as an outcome measure. Several instruments that measure resilience have been used with mindfulness research but an age specific tool has not yet been investigated.

AIMS: Primarily, to evaluate adolescent resilience to establish the effectiveness of the Mindfulness in Schools Project ‘.b’ mindfulness training program taught in a New Zealand school environment. Secondly, to test the convergence validity of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure with the Ego Resilience Scale.

METHOD: To investigate these aims this study used a single cohort design with pre-post measures using The Child and Youth Resilience Measure administered pre-and-post the 9-week mindfulness intervention to gauge changes in resilience. The Ego Resilience Scale was also administered post intervention to establish convergence validity with The Child Youth Resilience Measure.

RESULTS: Data from 87 students were analysed with results from the Child and Youth Resilience Measure and all the subscales showed no significant change in resilience from pre-to-post the mindfulness intervention. Correlations between the Child and Youth Resilience Measure and the Ego Resilience Scale instruments (Pearson’s r=0.49, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.65, p<0.001) demonstrated good convergent validity.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study indicated that mindfulness training in a school environment taught to adolescents from an independent boys’ school had no significant effectson resilience from pre-to-post intervention. This study, however, does demonstrate good convergent validity between the Child and Youth Resilience Measure and Ego Resilience Scale, and it appears sufficiently sensitive to evaluate a mindfulness in schools training program with adolescents.