Eficacia de Mindfulness en el estrés de los estudiantes universitarios

Resumen

It is accepted that students experience stress throughout their academic life. The inability to coping produces personal, physical, mental, and academic consequences. On the other hand, evidence about the fact that mindfulness meditation helps to reduce stress and stress responses accumulates in the health field. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mindfulness meditation program on perceived academic stress by university students of health sciences. Method. Sixty-one students from the Faculty of Physiotherapy participated in this study; thirty were assigned to the experimental group and thirty-one to the control group. Participants were randomly allocated to the groups. The research design was experimental. A mindfulness meditation program was implemented for twelve weeks. Data were gathered through the questionnaire technique (Academic Stress Questionnaire), one week before the start of the program and the week after its completion. Results. The results of t-test showed significant differences (p <0.05) in the experimental group in the three scales evaluated: stressors, stress responses, and coping strategies. Conclusion: results suggest that mindfulness meditation can be effective to decrease the level of perceived stress in undergraduate students of physiotherapy, and to improve their stress coping strategies.