Abstract
Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs have been found to be effective in reducing the stress response and improving the psychological wellbeing of various populations. We aimed to confirm the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program on perceived stress, heart rate variability, positive and negative affect, and subjective wellbeing of community-dwelling people with schizophrenia. The participants in this study were 26 people with schizophrenia (experimental group: 14, control group: 12) enrolled in two community mental health centers located in Gyeonggi Province in South Korea. In the experimental group, the mindfulness-based stress reduction program was applied once a week for 60 min over 8 weeks. The experimental group showed a significantly greater decrease in perceived stress and negative affect, as well as significantly greater improvement in heart rate variability than the control group. The mindfulness-based stress reduction program was an effective nursing intervention to reduce stress and negative affect in people with schizophrenia.
Highlights
The international lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia among noninstitutionalized persons is 0.3% to 0.7% [1]
The specific selection criteria for the participants were as follows: (1) having been diagnosed with schizophrenia by a psychiatrist, (2) having insight into their condition based on a score of 9 or less according to the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD) [30], (3) having symptoms of moderate severity as shown by a score of less than 41 on the Brief Psychiatric
These results are consistent with those of previous studies [43,44] that analyzed the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs, and they indicate that the MBSR program had effects on perceived stress and heart rate variability (HRV)
Summary
The international lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia among noninstitutionalized persons is 0.3% to 0.7% [1]. People with schizophrenia are vulnerable to stress due to difficulties in interpersonal relationships and low self-esteem [3] For this reason, there is a vicious cycle of being discharged from the hospital and subjected to rehospitalization due to relapse induced by vulnerability to stress and environmental stressors, resulting in numerous difficulties in returning to society and adapting thereto [4,5]. The personal and internal stress factors experienced by people with schizophrenia in the community include side-effects caused by antipsychotic drugs, other health problems [6], psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions of persecution, and reduced quality of life and wellbeing due to frequent cycles of hospitalization and discharge [7]. Many of them involve limited strategies to empower self-management of the illness [10]
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