Mindfulness: An Effective Vehicle in Dealing with Stress, Depression and Anxiety

This study evaluates the effectiveness of mindfulness in dealing with stress, depression, and anxiety among university students. It reviews four peer-reviewed journals and discusses the aims, methods, and materials used in the study. The study concludes that mindfulness can be used as an intervention for stress, anxiety, and depression among university students.

Running Head: MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 1
Mindfulness is an Effective Vehicle in Dealing with Stress,
Depression and Anxiety
Teacher’s Name
Victoria University

MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 2
Mindfulness is an Effective Vehicle in Dealing with Stress,
Depression and Anxiety
Broad Introductory Paragraph:
Mindfulness in psychology is defined as the action of being attentive of personal
feelings, thoughts and bodily sensation in moment by moment. This study report evaluates
various concepts of mindfulness as a subject in relation to stress, depression and anxiety. To
begin with, the content evaluates four peer reviewed journals, explains the aims of the study
as well as the method and materials used while conducting the DASS 21 lab process.
Review Several Pieces of literature
Summary journal 1 &2:
Journal 1: The first peer-reviewed journal selected for the study focused on the effect
of a mindfulness program on university students who were likely to suffer from depression,
anxiety and stress. According to of the study, university students suffer much from stress and
high anxiety levels immediately when admitted to universities and during examination
periods. The authors of this study focused on investigating whether mindfulness training
could help reduce or eliminate manifestation anxiety, depression, and stress among students.
To achieve the desired results, a group of first year students were identified as study group
one and matched to a control cohort and additional group that was involved in actively
physical activity. The authors of the study used DASS-21 scale of measurement to attain the
study results. The evident form the study, it was found that there was a reduced effect of
anxiety, stress and depression among the mindfulness study group as compare to the other
cohort groups. As a result it was concluded that, mindfulness program can be used as an
intervention for stress, anxiety and depression among university students.

MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 3
Journal 2: the second journal was a randomized controlled study by Warnecke et al.
on the magnitude of mindfulness exercise on the stress level of medical student. The study
was mainly objected towards determining whether mindfulness exercise can help reduce the
stress level midst senior medical learners. The participants of the study were randomly
carefully chosen from three main schools in the University of Tasmania. The study involved
the questionnaires, and the primary data obtained were analysed using PSS while the
secondary data was measured using DASS 21 scale. The study results were similar to the first
study, where the authors found that mindfulness sessions alleviated stress and anxiety
prevalence of study group.
Summary journal 3 &4:
Journal 3: The third journal is a study done by Gary, Shapiro and Ginny on the effect
of mindfulness-based on stress reduction among medical and premedical learners. Shapiro,
Ginny and Gary used a statistically controlled study to examine the effect mediation based
therapy on the study groups for a period of 8 weeks. The result of the study showed that
learner’s involvement in meditational exercises lowered anxious trait, level of distress among
the learners. The involved students in the mindfulness exercise also showed high spirits and
increased level of empathy. After the evaluation of the results and findings, the study
concluded that meditation as mindfulness exercises was crucial for premedical and medical
students during examination period as it reduces DASS level.
Journal 4: The fourth study reviewed in this report is the study of Burton et al.,
which evaluated the introduction of mindfulness as a clinical training strategy for the freshly
admitted social worker students. According to the study, the researchers employed a mixed
method approach in order to reach the study objective and purpose. The study investigated
how involvement of social worker students in a mindfulness training would impact them in
relation to stress, depression and anxiety. Therefore, every group of the social worker

MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 4
students were subjected to a 10 minutes mindfulness training session for a period of time and
the results were analysed based on depression, anxiety and stress measurement scale. After
the analysis, it was found that stress and anxiety level had dropped among the participants
compared to the non-participants. This led to the study conclusion that subjection of social
worker students to a mindfulness training reduces the level of stress among the students.
Contribution of Research
Based on the review of the four selected peer reviewed journals on the same topic,
the current study is purposed towards filling various gaps on the topic not well covered and
those that were totally not captured in the previous studies. The study will rely on the
previous studies to add concepts and expand on previous authors schools of thought.
Aims-: the aim of this study is to investigate whether subjection of first year
university students to a mindfulness intervention exercises for 8days would change their
levels of depression, anxiety and stress. The participants would be subjected to a ten minutes
mindfulness exercise on a daily basis from day one to the eight day. The data would be
collected form the two classes, analysed and conclusion drawn from the study results.
Study hypothesis-: the study is founded on the hypothesis that freshly admitted
psychology students at Victoria University would experience increased levels of anxiety,
stress and depression in comparison to senior student other student who have stayed log in
the vicinity. The second hypothesis of the study is that these first year student would show
reduced levels of DASS after a short mindfulness exercise sessions for a period of 8days.
Method and Material
Method
Participants
The study is a pilot study which was conducted for the period between week six and
week eight. The study involved students from semester one and two, respectively. The

MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 5
selection of the study cohorts was based on admission. The mindfulness exercise was
scheduled for seven days and was to end by the beginning of week 8. During the inclusion
period students from semester one were selected for the study, and 335 students agreed to
participate forming the experimental group (N = 335). Additional group from the second
semester were also involved in the study and were termed as control group (N = 220).
Materials – DASS 21
Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (short version DASS-21; Lovibond &
Lovibond, 1993) was used for the study. Each participant was to complete the DASS-21
interview, hence, each participant was given a questionnaire to fill for self-assessment before
commencing a 10 minutes study sessions. DASS-21 scale used consisted of seven items for
every subscale which had similarly standardized content. The measurement scale for the
study was divided into three major sections. The 1st scale as the depression which was used
to measure items related to depression such as desperateness, dysphonia as well as self-
depreciation. The 2nd was the anxiety scale which was used for measuring items such as
situational anxiousness and 3rd scale (stress scale) was used for the assessment of various
stress items like the tension, distress and self-ease.
Procedure
While undertaking the inclusion procedure, all the participant who had agreed to the
test were given the DASS-21 questionnaire which contained standardized questions for the
intake. Afterwards the study participants were organized into groups which for easy data
collection and accessibility. The participants were then engaged in a 10 minutes mindfulness
session for 8days. Where the 1st session took place in the classroom before the pre-test, six
meetings took place at the participants' homes, and the last session took place in the
classroom before the post-test. One volunteer psychology student was also involved in the
study and was given the DASS 21 questionnaire, though, she was not to be tested for anxiety,

MINDFULNESS: AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE 6
stress, and depression but only involved as a control procedure. After the control experiment
data was collocated from each group and set for analysis.