Judgment and reactivity are associated with mental distress among university students
The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice
ISSN: 1755-6228
Article publication date: 11 February 2022
Issue publication date: 22 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Mental health issues are concurrent among college students and new interventions are needed to address the problem. The objective of this study was to evaluate the convergence of symptoms into a single factor called “mental distress” and its relationship to mindfulness facets.
Design/methodology/approach
Brazilian university students (n = 136) answered self-report questionnaires, assessing sociodemographic information, dispositional mindfulness, insomnia severity, perceived stress, depression and anxiety. The analytical procedure consisted of defining the latent variable and relationships with mindfulness facets in a structural equations modeling environment.
Findings
The proposed model presented good fit [χ2 (23 = 34.38; p = 0.060; RMSEA = 0.068 (90% CI = 0.00;0.114); CFI = 0.951] and mental distress was inversely related to the five facets of mindfulness questionnaire of nonjudgment and nonreactivity.
Originality/value
The symptoms converged into a latent variable, and the latent variable was related to the abilities of not judging and not reacting to internal stimuli. The relationships found might guide the development of future intervention strategies to benefit university students’ mental health.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors declare that the manuscript is original, previously unpublished and is not under submission to any other journal for publication.
The authors have full control of all primary data and agree to allow the journal to review the data upon request.
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest – ARN is connected to the “Centro Brasileiro de Formação e Pesquisa em Mindfulness MBRP,” which offers professional training in MBRP.
Research involving human participants and/or animals – As developed through the text, and pointed on the methods section, the research involves human participants.
Informed consent – All participants signed an informed consent approved by the research ethics committee.
Citation
Gonçalves Gallo, G., Fernandez Curado, D., Pires Alves Machado, M., Villar Scattone, V. and Noto, A.R. (2022), "Judgment and reactivity are associated with mental distress among university students", The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 455-464. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMHTEP-08-2021-0094
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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