Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Retreat on Depression and Anxiety in Bereaved Parents

Background and purpose: The death of a child is a profoundly life-altering event associated with negative psychosocial outcomes in parents. However, this topic has received little attention in social work research and practice. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a three-day mindfulness-based retreat on anxious and depressive symptoms in bereaved parents. It is hypothesized that the intervention group will show symptom reductions relative to a comparison group of bereaved parents utilizing online support forums.

Methods: The study used a quasi-experimental longitudinal design with two nonequivalent groups. Ethical concerns precluded randomization. Data were collected through online surveys from two consecutive retreat cohorts (n=42) and comparison groups (n=183) commencing two weeks prior, one to three weeks after, and five to ten weeks after the intervention.

The Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25), a 25-item self-report measure containing anxiety and depression subscales, was used to assess symptoms. In the overall sample, it showed high reliability at all observations (α=.95-.96 full scale; α=.88-95 subscales).

The overall sample was 96.7% female with a mean age of 42.53 (SD=10.02) and a mean of 4.77 (SD=6.26) years since the loss. The intervention group was slightly older (t(225)=2.01, p<.05, 95% CI [.07, 6.87]). There were no significant differences between groups on gender or time since the child’s death.

Independent-samples t-tests assessed differences in mean scores for the intervention and comparison group at the three observation points.

Results: Independent-samples t-tests showed significant differences between group means at pretest on the HSCL-25 (t(223)=1.99, p<.05, 95% CI [.002, .525]) and the depression subscale (t(223)=1.99, p<.05, 95% CI [.002, .563]); the intervention group had higher mean scores on both, indicating greater symptoms. There were no significant differences on the anxiety subscale at pretest, though the intervention group had a higher mean score and the difference approached significance (t(223)=1.94, p=.054, 95% CI [-.004, .518]). At posttest and follow-up, the intervention group scores on the HSCL-25 and depression subscale decreased to slightly below that of the comparison group and there were no longer any significant differences between groups. No differences were found on the anxiety subscale, though the difference between groups no longer approached significance and the intervention group mean decreased at posttest and follow-up while the comparison group mean remained relatively unchanged.

Both groups showed high levels of distress at pretest, with 83.3% of the intervention group and 54.6% of the comparison group scoring above the clinical cutoff on the HSCL-25, indicating clinically significant symptoms. This figure decreased to 60.6% at posttest and rose slightly to 62.5% at follow-up in the intervention group, while it increased to 72.6% and then dropped slightly to 62.5% in the comparison group.

Conclusions and implications: Results suggest that the mindfulness-based retreat may have modestly improved depressive symptoms, but not anxious symptoms, among a highly distressed group of bereaved parents, to the point that they were statistically indistinguishable from a comparison group. Improvements were maintained 5-10 weeks post-intervention. Though this study lacked randomization, these preliminary findings suggest that this intervention is worthy of further investigation.