Abstract
Objective: Due to a rise in perfectionistic tendencies and growing concerns about the increase in mental health conditions among students this study aimed to examine the effects of a brief intervention in self-compassion on maladaptive perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and body image.Methods: The intervention consisted of four seminars and a silent half-day retreat with short lectures and relevant experiential practices from Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). This randomized wait-list control trial was pre-registered at Clinicaltrials.gov (ID: NCT03453437, Unique Protocol ID: UiBMSC2018). University students were randomly assigned to the intervention group and wait-list control group and filled out surveys weekly. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the groups pre- and post-treatment. Mixed level modeling was used to analyze changes in all outcome measures over time.Results: Eighty-nine participants completed the intervention. Results of the ANOVA showed significant post-intervention reductions in maladaptive perfectionistic tendencies and symptoms of depression and anxiety, in addition to increased self-compassion and improved body image in the intervention group as compared to the wait-list group. Mixed level modeling showed statistically significant changes in self-compassion, maladaptive perfectionism, adaptive perfectionism, anxiety, and depression but not body image. Only the mixed level modeling showed small but significant changes to adaptive perfectionism, also called strivings. Implications of different changes to maladaptive perfectionism than adaptive perfectionism are discussed.
Highlights
Studies in western countries report a rise in several mental health conditions among university students
In a multimethod project, including a quantitative multi-baseline randomized controlled trial (RCT), phenomenological interviews and a qualitative online survey, we found that a three-session selfcompassion course gave gains in personal growth self-efficacy and healthy self-control, increases in self-compassion and reductions in anxiety and depression (Dundas et al, 2017)
Baseline correlations showed that self-compassion correlated negatively with depression [N(353), r = −0.55, p < 0.01], anxiety [N(353), r = −0.72, p < 0.01] and positively with body appreciation [N(353), r = 0.59, p < 0.01], meaning students who scored higher on self-compassion at baseline had lower scores depression, anxiety and higher body appreciation
Summary
Studies in western countries report a rise in several mental health conditions among university students. Self-Compassion Intervention RCT suicide attempts between 2007 and 2018 This trend has been observed in Norway, where more students report serious mental health problems than they did 8 years prior (Knapstad et al, 2018). In the most recent national survey, 29% Norwegian students reported having struggled with serious mental health problems (Knapstad et al, 2018). This trend is alarming, especially as it is unclear what is driving these changes. A study of 155,026 students found that rates of past year mental health service utilization on U.S campuses increased from 19% in 2007 to 34% in 2017 (Lipson et al, 2019)
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