Mindfulness en estudiantes universitarios y su relación con estrés, ansiedad, depresión, resiliencia y satisfacción con la vida

Abstract

Nowadays, there is a growing interest in research and application of mindfulness techniques in the general and clinical population, obtaining multiple benefits. However in the university population the studies are smaller and aimed mainly to check the effectiveness of mindfulness-based intervention programs. The genera! objective of this work is to analyze mindfulness in the university population and its relationship with other variables of interest in this population: stress, depression, anxiety, resilience and life satisfaction. It is also intended to analyze and test the predictive (and incremental) capacity of mindfulness when related to these variables. In this cross-sectional study, 602 students enrolled at the University of Huelva during the academic year 2015-2016 participated (67.9% women and 31.5% nien), with a mean age of 22.45 years. The administered questionnaires were: sociodemographic questionnaire (age, gender and meditation practice), Mindful Attention Awareness Scaie (MASS-SP), Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS-21) and Resilience Scaie. The results indicated that students with high levels of mindfulness present low scores on the stress, depression and anxiety scales and, on the other hand, higher levels in resilience and satisfaction with life. Regarding the sociodemographic variables, in general, the results did not yield significant data. Finally, in the regression model, the results indicated that mindfulness predicts stress and anxiety, while in the case of depression the best predictors were resilience and iife satisfaction. We believe that these results highlight the importance of promoting strategies of mindfulness in universities because of the great benefits they can bring to university students, both to promote mindfulness and resilience, either directly or indirectly, which would in turn result in greater well-being under situations of academic pressures especially. Likewise, future research is suggested to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of mindfulness-based intervention programs for students, in order to optimize in them the enormous benefits that mindfulness can bring them and to isolate the components that really are essential for said programs to work.