Planting Seeds for Resilience—a Pilot Mindfulness Program in Migrant Chinese Children

Background: Mental health and substance use disorders are the leading cause of disability in youth worldwide and ninety percent of affected youth lives in developing countries, where contextually appropriate evidence and resources are severely lacking. Mindfulness-based interventions have shown to reduce anxiety and depression in adults and emerging literature suggests promise in its benefit in youth cognitive and psychosocial outcomes. Rural-to-urban migrant children in China are at high risk for mental health problems yet have scarce resources. We piloted an evidence-based Mindfulness-based mental health prevention program in this population using trained community volunteers to assess its potential impact.

Methods: A total of 653 students ages 9-14 from 5 migrant schools in Shanghai were enrolled. We used a randomized controlled design to assign them to the Mindfulness intervention group (N=285) vs. a waitlist control group (N=368). The intervention arm received 8 weeks of weekly one-hour group-based Mindfulness training delivered by a trained community volunteer. We collected socio-demographic data as well as validated surveys on mental health measurements including the Mindfulness(MAAS), youth resilience (SDQ), Anxiety (MASC) and Depression (CESD-R) symptoms at baseline and at the end of the 8-week intervention. Multi-variable regression analyses were used to compare the intervention vs. control group on the mental health measures before and after intervention, controlling for socio-demographic factors.

Results: At baseline, there was no significant differences between the control group and the intervention arms. After 8 weeks of intervention, no significant differences were found between the intervention vs. control arms in Mindfulness scores (63.6±1.15 vs. 63.7±0.83, p>0.05), resilience scores (12.4±0.57 vs. 11.5±0.33, p>0.05), anxiety scores (41.5±1.99 vs. 40.8±1.23, p>0.05) or depression scores (11.1±1.20 vs. 10.6±0.74, p>0.05). Three-month follow up data and qualitative data are being finalized for understanding these preliminary post-intervention results.

Conclusion: A community volunteer-led, 8-week Mindfulness prevention program adapted from existing literature in high-income countries did not significantly impact migrant Chinese student Mindfulness, resilience, anxiety, or depression levels. More research is needed for developing effective mental health preventive programs specific to resource-limited settings.