The effectiveness of a school-based mindfulness intervention (ADOMIND) on adolescents’ depressive symptoms: a pilot study

Adolescence is often considered as a critical developmental period for the emergence of mental health problems. In both research and practice settings, there is growing interest in the potential of school-based mindfulness interventions to promote the mental health of adolescents. In this pilot study, 15-year-old adolescents (n = 34) were taking part in either an 8-week mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) or an 8-week healthy life skills intervention. Self-reported measures of mindfulness and mental health were administered before and after intervention completion. Results revealed that adolescents from the MBI group showed significantly greater reduction in psychological symptoms and negative affect than adolescents from the control intervention group. Findings suggest that MBIs integrated into regular classroom curricula and conducted by ordinary teachers may offer cost-effective solutions for mental health prevention in adolescents. These encouraging results need to be replicated with a larger sample before their generalizability to the adolescent public can be determined.