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The COVID-19 pandemic imposed extreme living conditions of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, which not only triggered negative mental health problems, but also created challenges in seeking mental health support. Consequently, many support services and programs were forced to rapidly shift into online platforms. Mindfulness-based programs have been found to enhance wellbeing and mental health, by reducing stress and anxiety and improving emotion regulation. Preliminary evidence suggests that online, synchronous mindfulness-based programs may produce beneficial effects similar to face-to-face programs. However, the effectiveness of such online mindfulness programs to support mental health in extremely stressful times such as a global pandemic requires more study.
To test the effect of an online 8-week mindfulness-based program (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, MBSR) on anxiety and stress levels, and on emotion regulation and tolerance of uncertainty abilities during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Individuals/Participants (N=92) who expressed interest in discounted online-MBSR programs were recruited to the study. Division into experimental and control groups was based on actual enrollment to the courses. Those who decided to enroll to one of the programs were assigned to the experimental condition and those who decided not to enroll served as controls. Participants were assessed pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2) and one-month post-intervention (T3) for levels of mindfulness, perceived stress, anxiety, emotion regulation and intolerance of uncertainty. The study was conducted in April 2020, at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19 in Israel and ended in July at the beginning of the second wave.
The findings indicate that relative to the control group, MBSR improved mindfulness abilities (p=.004), decreased anxiety (p=.021) and stress (p<.001) and increased emotion regulation (p<.001). These effects persisted even a month after the end of the program, although governmental public-health restrictions due to COVID-19 were worsened at that time. Ability to tolerate uncertainty, a central characteristic of the pandemic, was not significantly affected by the program. The interventions effect on mental health improvement was partially mediated by the improvement in emotion regulation (β = 0.24, CI = [0.054, 0.373])
Overall, our findings provide positive evidence for the feasibility of an online-MBSR program to support mental health of individuals from the general population through the mediation of emotion regulation, in challenging times such as a global pandemic.