The effect of course integrated mindfulness and resilience training on students’ level of psychological well-being

Previous research has found university students to report elevated levels of psychological distress indicating potentially high rates of mental illness. The current research investigated if material presented in a typical university teaching format could function as an intervention. The curriculum of a first year psychology subject included teaching techniques related to counselling psychology and mindfulness techniques. We hypothesised that engaging in this material would reduce the severity of psychological distress. First year students from this subject and another first year psychology subject completed measures of psychological distress, resilience, psychological well-being and selected personality traits at two separate times during semester. The results were consistent with previous research in finding that students reported high levels of psychological distress and low levels of psychological well-being and resilience. While an increase in resilience over the semester was found the mindfulness material was found to not function as an intervention. The personality trait of resilience vs. emotional liability, related to the domain of neuroticism, was the only consistent predictor of positive and negative functioning. High trait resilience was related to low psychological distress, high psychological well-being and high resilience as measured as ability to bounce back from adversity. The implications of the current research are that there is still a need to develop population level interventions to decrease students' level of psychological and that personality may be an important factor in understanding students psychological functioning.