Open Access

ARTICLE

Short-Term Mindfulness Intervention on Adolescents’ Negative Emotion under Global Pandemic

Yue Yuan^1,*, Aibao Zhou^1,*, Tinghao Tang¹, Manying Kang², Haiyan Zhao¹, Zhi Wang³

1 Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, 730070, China
2 Hongkong Baptist University, Hong Kong, 999077, China
3 Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50605, Malaysia

* Corresponding Authors: Yue Yuan. Email: ; Aibao Zhou. Email:

International Journal of Mental Health Promotion 2023, 25(4), 563-577. https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2023.022161

Received 25 May 2022; Accepted 15 September 2022; Issue published 01 March 2023

Abstract

Objective: In this research, we tried to explore how short-term mindfulness (STM) intervention affects adolescents’ anxiety, depression, and negative and positive emotion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design: 10 classes were divided into experiment groups (5 classes; n = 238) and control (5 classes; n = 244) randomly. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were used to measure participants’ dependent variables. In the experiment group, we conducted STM practice interventions every morning in their first class from March to November 2020. No interventions were conducted in the control group. Methods: Paired-sample t-tests were used to identify if a significant difference exists between every time point of the experimental and control groups. Repeated ANOVA and Growth Mixture Model (GMM) were used to analyze the tendency of positive and negative emotions, anxiety, and depression in the experimental group. Results and Conclusions: (1) With the intervention of STM, there was a significant decrease in negative emotions and an increase in positive emotions in the experimental group, whereas there were non-significant differences in the control group. (2) To explore the heterogeneity trajectories of dependent variables, we built a GMM and found there were two latent growth classes in the trajectories. (3) The results of the models showed their trajectories were downward, which meant that the levels of anxiety, depression, and negative emotions of participants decreased during the STM training period. Nonetheless, the score of positive affect showed upward in three loops of intervention, which indicated that the level of the participants’ positive affect increased through the STM intervention. (4) This research indicated that STM should be given increasing consideration to enhance mental health during the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19.

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Keywords

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