Abstract
Objectives
The Gaia program is a 12-week mindfulness intervention based on cultivating body, emotional, and ecological self-awareness, which has been shown so far to be effective in reducing children’s internalizing and externalizing problems at school. This paper presents the results of a CRCT aimed at investigating the effectiveness of this program on improving internalizing, externalizing, and total problems in a different population group (i.e., high-school adolescents).
Methods
The study compared outcomes for adolescents assigned to the experimental group, who received the intervention delivered by instructors within the school curriculum, with those of the control group using a multilevel regression model. Emotional/behavioral problems were assessed with the Achenbach Youth Self-Report. Two hundred thirty-four participants (mean age 14 years) were recruited from seven schools.
Results
The experimental group showed a significant decrease in internalizing and total problems scales, as well as a stable pattern of externalizing problems over time, whereas the control group showed an increasing trend in internalizing, externalizing, and total problems. Moreover, the treatment group showed a decreasing trend in social and thought problems as compared to that in the control group. Finally, adolescents in the control group who scored below the clinical cut-off score at pre-test, at the end of the study scored above the clinical cut-off score in total and externalizing problems.
Conclusions
Findings from this study provide evidence that the Gaia program for adolescents may significantly decrease internalizing problems and maintain similar levels of externalizing problems from pre-test to post-test that, conversely, increase in the control group.
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Data Availability
The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. The relevant dataset is available from OSF: https://osf.io/2r8kn.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the teachers who collected the data and delivered the intervention. We also thank the headmasters and all school communities who allowed the data collection.
Funding
The Gaia program was funded by the Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policies.
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FS executed the study, wrote the paper, and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript. SG and NFM designed and executed the study and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript. FP analyzed the data, wrote the paper, and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript. LI wrote the paper and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript.
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Ethics Statement
This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of the European University of Rome (June 07, 2022 - No. 07/2022).
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Informed consent was obtained by the parents of the adolescents included in the study.
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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Scafuto, F., Ghiroldi, S., Montecucco, N.F. et al. The Mindfulness-Based Gaia Program Reduces Internalizing Problems in High-School Adolescents: a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Mindfulness 13, 1804–1815 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01920-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-01920-9