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Mindfulness therapy reduces stress, depression, stigma in black women
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Mindfulness-based treatment for stress reduction decreased depressive symptoms, stress and depression stigma among black women receiving treatment in an urban Federally Qualified Health Center.
“Many women are in need of help with their depression and coping with daily life, but they don’t seek it out because of limited access to high-quality mental health services and the stigma within their families and communities,” Inger Burnett-Zeigler, PhD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a press release. “Our study shows that there are alternatives to traditional mental health treatment, such as mind-body approaches, that effectively alleviate symptoms and can be done autonomously in the comfort of their own home.”
To assess efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction adapted for delivery in an urban Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), researchers enrolled 31 black women with depressive symptoms to complete an 8-week mindfulness group intervention. Depression, stress, mindfulness, functioning, well-being and depression stigma were evaluated at baseline, 8 and 16 weeks. Study participants had a mean age of 51.9 years.
Chronic health conditions were common among women. The most common included hypertension (n = 12), high cholesterol (n = 11), depression (n = 11) and arthritis (n = 11).
Thirty-five percent of women reported being previously diagnosed with a depressive disorder; 48% reported using mental health services in their lifetime and 12% in the past year.
Of those who used mental health services in their lifetime, 86% reported participating in individual therapy.
Mild-to-moderate symptoms of depression were common at baseline (n = 22), 8 weeks (n = 13) and 16 weeks (n = 12).
More participants became asymptomatic at 8 weeks (n = 6) and 16 weeks (n = 8).
Depressive symptoms significantly decreased from baseline to 16 weeks (P = .04) but did not significantly change from baseline to 8 weeks and 8 weeks to 16 weeks.
Stress significantly decreased from baseline to 8 weeks (P = .01) and baseline to 16 weeks (P = .02).
Overall well-being did not significantly change during the study period. However, participants exhibited significant increases on the self-acceptance (P = .02) and personal growth (P = .04) subscales from baseline to 8 weeks.
Depression stigma significantly increased from baseline to 8 weeks (P = .03) and decreased from 8 to 16 weeks (P = .02).
Analysis of the depression stigma subscales indicated a significant increase in treatment stigma (P = .04) from baseline to 8 weeks and a significant decrease in public stigma (P = .04) and general self-stigma (P = .05) subscales from 8 to 16 weeks.
Researchers found a significant moderate negative correlation between change in mindfulness and change in depression (P = .01) and a significant moderate positive correlation between change in mindfulness and change in well-being (P = .001) from baseline to 8 weeks.
“[These] preliminary data suggest that a mindfulness based intervention for depression is feasible and positively impacts multiple psychological outcomes among high-risk disadvantaged depressed women in a FQHC. Further, mindfulness was positively correlated with well-being and negatively correlated with depression from baseline to 8 weeks, suggesting that mindfulness may be the mechanism of effect on other psychological outcomes,” the researchers wrote. “Notable numbers of women self-identified a need for a mental health intervention and were willing to enroll and participate which demonstrates surface acceptability. Strengthening collaborations with FQHC providers and leadership would likely further improve the identification of individuals with a need for treatment as well as the referral network.” – by Amanda Oldt
Disclosure: Please see the full study for a list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.