Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
September 29, 2009
Paul A. M. van den Hurk, Fabio Giommi, Stan Gielen et al.
282 citations
Expert mindfulness meditators show better orienting and executive attention than age- and gender-matched controls, as measured by the attention network test. The 20 meditators had smaller differences in reaction time and error scores, indicating more efficient attentional processing. Extensive mindfulness meditation appears to reduce the fraction of errors for responses with the same reaction time, suggesting that mental training can increase the efficiency of attentional processing.
PLoS ONE
December 2, 2021
Imke Hanssen, Vera Scheepbouwer, Marloes Huijbers et al.
12 citations
Adverse effects during Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for bipolar disorder are not rare but are generally not serious or long-lasting. In a randomized trial with 144 patients, 29 reported adverse effects, most frequently in the first three weeks. Seven types of adverse effects were observed: cognitive, perceptual, affective, somatic, conative, sense of self, and social. Higher baseline anxiety increased risk. More than half of patients later viewed the adverse effects as part of a therapeutic process rather than harmful. Influencing factors included predisposing, precipitating, perpetuating, and mitigating elements.
BMC psychiatry
February 14, 2025
Maud Schepers, Paul Lagerweij, Dirk Geurts et al.
2 citations
Internalizing problems like worrying, anxiety, and low mood are increasingly common in youth and may signal early-stage mental illness. This randomized controlled trial will test whether a mindfulness-based program called Learning to Offset Stress, added to usual care, reduces internalizing symptoms in 155 help-seeking youth aged 16–25. The program combines mindfulness exercises with mindful physical activity and yoga over eight weekly sessions. Assessments occur at baseline, end of treatment, and at two and six months after treatment. The primary outcome is the level of internalizing problems measured by the Adult Self Report questionnaire. Secondary outcomes include self-compassion, rumination, experiential avoidance, and well-being, along with brain imaging and cognitive tasks. The trial aims to clarify how early mindfulness intervention may alter symptom development and mental illness progression.
International journal of methods in psychiatric research
September 12, 2023
Ben Wijnen, Maud Jansen, Annelieke Van Velthoven et al.
2 citations
Adding mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to treatment as usual (TAU) for adults with bipolar disorder is likely cost-effective compared to TAU alone. Over 15 months, total societal costs were €615 lower for the MBCT-plus-TAU group, and healthcare costs differed significantly between groups. A small gain in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) combined with lower costs (€836 after adjustment) made MBCT-plus-TAU the dominant strategy. The probability that the combination was cost-effective was 65%. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of these results. The difference in clinical effect was small or negligible, but the intervention still reduced overall costs.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
June 12, 2026
Thorsten Barnhofer, Maria Niemi, Johannes Michalak et al.
1 citation
For adults with difficult-to-treat depression—those who have not responded to prior treatments, have treatment-resistant depression, or have a chronic course—mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is likely superior to usual care, reducing depressive symptoms by a standardized mean difference of -0.40 at post-treatment and -0.41 at medium-term follow-up. There was a 92% and 85% probability, respectively, that these benefits exceeded a minimal important difference. However, MBCT did not show clear superiority over other active psychosocial interventions, and no robust moderators of outcome were identified across baseline severity, chronicity, or comorbidity.