Exploring The effects Of An online asynchronous mindfulness meditation intervention with nursing students On Stress, mood, And Cognition: A descriptive study

Background: Nurses returning to school while working, raising families, and maintaining other roles, can experience stress, mood changes and cognition disturbance that negatively impact their academic success. Objectives: To explore the effect of an online mindfulness meditation intervention with distance nursing students on stress, mood and cognition. Design: A 24 week descriptive study. Settings: An 8 week online intervention was offered to all undergraduate and graduate nursing students, of three nursing programs of a middle-sized university in mid-Atlantic US. Participants: A total of 26 nursing students completed the study. Methods: An 8 week online, asynchronous mindfulness intervention was provided through the learning management system with a 16 week follow-up. Outcomes measures: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Attention Network Test (ANT). Results: Stress was significantly reduced (F(2,24) = 4.163, p = .019). A decreasing trend for anxiety was noted with significant difference between time points (F(1,23) = 6.889, p = .015) when practice frequency was weekly to daily. Cognition: ability to shift attention, attention selection, concentration, and accuracy improved. Conclusion: Findings from this study may illuminate the usefulness of a mindfulness based stress reduction program offered to distance nursing students. Further studies are needed to better demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.