Cargando…

Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study

BACKGROUND: There is a need to prevent anxiety and depression in young people and mindfulness contains important emotion regulation strategies. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based therapy, has yet to be evaluated as a prevention program, but has demonstrated an ability to re...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Burckhardt, Rowan, Manicavasagar, Vijaya, Batterham, Philip J., Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan, Shand, Fiona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28559924
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-017-0164-5
_version_ 1783238903135731712
author Burckhardt, Rowan
Manicavasagar, Vijaya
Batterham, Philip J.
Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan
Shand, Fiona
author_facet Burckhardt, Rowan
Manicavasagar, Vijaya
Batterham, Philip J.
Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan
Shand, Fiona
author_sort Burckhardt, Rowan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a need to prevent anxiety and depression in young people and mindfulness contains important emotion regulation strategies. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based therapy, has yet to be evaluated as a prevention program, but has demonstrated an ability to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in adult and adolescent populations. This study examines the feasibility of using an ACT-based prevention program in a sample of year 10 (aged 14–16 years) high school students from Sydney, Australia. METHODS: Participants were allocated to either their usual classes or to the ACT-based intervention. Participants were followed for a period of 5 months post-intervention and completed the Flourishing Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, and a program evaluation questionnaire. Analyses were completed using intention-to-treat mixed models for repeated measures. RESULTS: The results indicated that the intervention was acceptable to students and feasible to administer in a school setting. There were no statistically significant differences between the conditions, likely due to the small sample size (N = 48). However, between-group effect sizes demonstrated small to large differences for baseline to post-intervention mean scores and medium to large differences for baseline to follow-up mean scores, all favouring the ACT-based condition. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that an ACT-based school program has potential as a universal prevention program and merits further investigation in a larger trial. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. Trial ID: ACTRN12616001383459. Registered 06/10/2016. Retrospectively registered.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5445489
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-54454892017-05-30 Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study Burckhardt, Rowan Manicavasagar, Vijaya Batterham, Philip J. Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan Shand, Fiona Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Research Article BACKGROUND: There is a need to prevent anxiety and depression in young people and mindfulness contains important emotion regulation strategies. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a mindfulness-based therapy, has yet to be evaluated as a prevention program, but has demonstrated an ability to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in adult and adolescent populations. This study examines the feasibility of using an ACT-based prevention program in a sample of year 10 (aged 14–16 years) high school students from Sydney, Australia. METHODS: Participants were allocated to either their usual classes or to the ACT-based intervention. Participants were followed for a period of 5 months post-intervention and completed the Flourishing Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, and a program evaluation questionnaire. Analyses were completed using intention-to-treat mixed models for repeated measures. RESULTS: The results indicated that the intervention was acceptable to students and feasible to administer in a school setting. There were no statistically significant differences between the conditions, likely due to the small sample size (N = 48). However, between-group effect sizes demonstrated small to large differences for baseline to post-intervention mean scores and medium to large differences for baseline to follow-up mean scores, all favouring the ACT-based condition. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that an ACT-based school program has potential as a universal prevention program and merits further investigation in a larger trial. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. Trial ID: ACTRN12616001383459. Registered 06/10/2016. Retrospectively registered. BioMed Central 2017-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5445489/ /pubmed/28559924 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-017-0164-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Burckhardt, Rowan
Manicavasagar, Vijaya
Batterham, Philip J.
Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan
Shand, Fiona
Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title_full Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title_fullStr Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title_full_unstemmed Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title_short Acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
title_sort acceptance and commitment therapy universal prevention program for adolescents: a feasibility study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28559924
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13034-017-0164-5
work_keys_str_mv AT burckhardtrowan acceptanceandcommitmenttherapyuniversalpreventionprogramforadolescentsafeasibilitystudy
AT manicavasagarvijaya acceptanceandcommitmenttherapyuniversalpreventionprogramforadolescentsafeasibilitystudy
AT batterhamphilipj acceptanceandcommitmenttherapyuniversalpreventionprogramforadolescentsafeasibilitystudy
AT hadzipavlovicdusan acceptanceandcommitmenttherapyuniversalpreventionprogramforadolescentsafeasibilitystudy
AT shandfiona acceptanceandcommitmenttherapyuniversalpreventionprogramforadolescentsafeasibilitystudy