Effect Of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Intervention On Psychological Well-Being Of The Elderly

With the rapid aging of the global population,successful and healthy aging has become an important issue that needs urgent attention.Mindfulness training,as a nonpharmaceuticals intervention,has great potential in coping with the physical and mental health of the elderly and improving the quality of life of the elderly.The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of mindfulness on the psychological well-being of the elderly and its internal mechanism,and to provide suggestions for the optimization of mindfulness relief group activities for the elderly.This study consists of two sub-studies.The first sub-study used the questionnaire method(N=255)to investigate and understand the level of mindfulness,selfcompassion and psychological well-being of the elderly group aged above 50.The results of study 1 show that there are significant correlations among mindfulness,selfcompassion and psychological well-being in elder group.Mindfulness has a positive predictive effect on psychological well-being.Self-compassion plays an mediatorial role between mindfulness and psychological well-being.Study 1 provided empirical evidences for designing and carrying on mindfulness based intervention in the elderly group.The second study was a mixed study of mindfulness reduction group intervention for the elderly which used both quantitative and qualitative methods.The study consisted of two parts: The first part used the pretest-posttest single group experimental design(N=22)to test the intervention effect of the 6-week mindfulnessbased stress reduction intervention on participants’ mindfulness,self-compassion level and psychological well-being.The second part used semi-structured interviews to process the interview text through thematic analysis to deeply understand the understanding of mindfulness among the elderly,and collect their feelings and suggestions for mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention,so as to put forward some pratical optimization suggestions for the future mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for the elderly.The results of study 2 showed that mindfulnessbased stress reduction intervention could significantly improve the mindfulness level of the elderly,but there was no significant change in self-compassion and psychological well-being in posttest.After the intervention,some participants had a deeper understanding of mindfulness,felt the improvement in sleep,defecation and other aspects and perceived the improvement of mindfulness exercise in improving concentration.They could also actively apply mindfulness to daily life.In general,the results of this study expand the existing findings of the correlation between mindfulness and well-being,and further verify the mediating role of selfcompassion in the process of mindfulness affecting psychological well-being.At the same time,it has designed mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for the elderly in combination with Chinese cultural background and conducted preliminary test on its effectiveness.The study enriches the practice of mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for the elderly in domestic communities.