ArticlePloS one2021
The importance of formal versus informal mindfulness practice for enhancing psychological wellbeing and study engagement in a medical student cohort with a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle program.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of the Adherence to Home-Practice Meditation Exercises in Patients with Chronic Pain.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- The effect of mindfulness interventions on stress in medical students: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- A Self-Guided Mobile Mindfulness Intervention Embedded in Daily Routines for Adults With Mild to Moderate Psychological Distress: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mental health · 2026Trial
- Effectiveness of an Online Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Improving Mental Health in Undergraduate Students: A Randomized Clinical Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Trial
- Web-Based Formal Versus Informal Mindfulness Programs for University Students With and Those Without Recent Self-Injury: Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Trial
- Effects of Digital Mindfulness Training for Couples on Psychological Distress and Infant Neuropsychological Development: Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Trial
- The Western Australian medical schools mindfulness project: a randomised controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2024Trial
- Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Psychological Stress in Medical Students: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Improvement of medical students' stress, dispositional mindfulness, well-being and flourishing during the first academic year of a medical curriculum integrating a well-being longitudinal strand.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Perceived Stress and Subjective Happiness in Medical Students Before and After a Wellness Speaker Session.Cureus · 2026Article
- Linking Critical Thinking Dispositions to Well-Being in Higher Education: A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Dual Pathways From Self-Compassion and Self-Criticism to Academic Achievement: The Roles of Engagement and Exhaustion.Perspectives on medical education · 2026Article
- The chain mediating effect of mindfulness and self-regulation in the relationship between parental warmth and adolescent study engagement.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Why mindfulness matters in musculoskeletal therapies: a narrative review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- A scoping review of mental health status in Australian medical students and doctors-in-training (DiT).Health science reports · 2024Article
- Enhancing self-care education amongst medical students: a systematic scoping review.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Acceptability, engagement, and preliminary efficacy of a college human physiology course with integrated mindfulness practice to support student wellbeing.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Measurement of student engagement in health professions education: a review of literature.BMC medical education · 2023Review
- The relationship between self-regulated learning, mindful agency, and psychological resilience in Chinese master of nursing specialists: A cross-sectional study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Prevalence, characteristics and measurement of somatic symptoms related to mental health in medical students: a scoping review.Annals of medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeMedical students commonly experience elevated psychological stress and poor mental health. To improve psychological wellbeing, a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle course was delivered to a first-year undergraduate medical student cohort as part of the core curriculum. This study investigated the effects of the program on mental health, perceived stress, study engagement, dispositional mindfulness, and whether any improvements were related to amount of formal and/or informal mindfulness practice.
methodsParticipants were first year undergraduate medical students (N = 310, 60% female, M = 18.60 years) with N = 205 individuals completing pre and post course questionnaires in a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle intervention. At pre- and post-intervention, participants completed the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, and the Mindfulness Adherence Questionnaire.
resultsMental health, perceived stress, study engagement, and mindfulness all improved from pre- to post-intervention (all p values < .001). Improvements on these outcome measures were inter-related such that PSS change scores were negatively correlated with all other change scores, FMI change scores were positively correlated with MHC-SF and UWES-S change scores, the latter of which was positively correlated with MHC-SF change scores (all p values < .01). Finally, observed improvements in all of these outcomes were positively related to informal practice quality while improved FMI scores were related to formal practice (all p values < .05).
conclusionsA 5-week mindfulness-based program correlates with improving psychological wellbeing and study engagement in medical students. These improvements particularly occur when students engage in informal mindfulness practice compared to formal practice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.