e-Pedagogium 2023, 23(4):33-42 | DOI: 10.5507/epd.2024.005

The effects of 8-week mindfulness meditation training on participants stress levels: a literature review

Barbora Kvapilová
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Department of Psychology and Abnormal Psychology, Faculty of Education, Palacký University, Žižkovo náměstí 5, 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic

In recent decades, mindfulness meditation has gained a lot of interest from the ranks of psychologists, psychiatrists and educators based on beneficial effects on stress reduction, improved emotion-regulation and overall psychological well-being. Numerous studies have shown such positive effects, most of them relying on participants self-reported questionnaires before and after the training in mindfulness meditation. Most common form of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are the Mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) working with all types of populations and the Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), targeting mainly clinical populations of patients with psychiatric diagnosis (i. e. depression, anxiety, panic attacks). On the other side of the research, a growing body of literature through meta-analyzes points out to weak and flawed methodological designs of studies using the MBIs that could lead to biased findings. This literature review aims to describe recent studies that show positive effects of MBIs and also describe the methodological shortcomings and gaps to offer possible solutions for improved methodological designs of studies focusing on mindfulness-based interventions. This literature review inclusion criteria were as following: search of meta-analysis and systematic review studies on the MBIs from the past five years (2017-2022), quantitative research studies between years 2012-2022, studies published in English with focus consistent with the purpose of this literature review. Relevant research studies were searched for in the ProQuest Psychology Database, PsycARTICLES, and PsycINFO databases offered by Palacký University through online access to databases.

Keywords: mindfulness meditation, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), stress, psychological well-being.

Received: March 22, 2023; Revised: January 24, 2024; Accepted: March 3, 2024; Published: July 16, 2024  Show citation

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Kvapilová, B. (2023). The effects of 8-week mindfulness meditation training on participants stress levels: a literature review. e-Pedagogium, 23(4), 33-42. doi: 10.5507/epd.2024.005
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