Mindfulness in university education: a pilot study

Background: Among professional psychologists distress and burnout are commonly reported and have implications for the quality of patient care. Already in the course of university studies, psychology students relate to mental distress and lower life satisfaction. The clinical efficacy of mindfulness has consistently been proved over the last two decades. A lot of studies, however, have been undertaken on its possible use in the adults training in a formal learning context. Methods: This pilot study aims to describe, through self-assessment tests with an assessment before and after the educational experience, the path of a group of young university Psychology Students, at University of Naples “Federico II”. The workshop was an inspired by the ACT structured program, and consisted of 6 sessions of two-hour as part of the course in the pedagogy of learning processes of the degree course in Psychology: among 50 students who participated in the workshops, 31 students completed the assessment, both the pre-test and post-test. Conclusions: The analysis of self-assessment questionnaires shows an improvement in all surveyed areas. The possible implications of the findings of this study regard the ability to use and promote the use of the techniques of mindfulness beyond the clinical setting as valuable tools for growth and development and above all within learning contexts. Particularly, the proposal to include a mindfulness protocol reflective practice in training programs in psychology is designed to provide skills to deal with the stressors of training, and through this experience of structured effective self-care, also improve longterm clinical skills of the future psychologists.