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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.

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.

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.

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.