Background The current study seeks to investigate the mechanisms through which mindfulness is related to mental health in a clinical sample of adults by examining a) whether specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies (rumination, reappraisal, worry, and non-acceptance) mediate associations between mindfulness and depression and anxiety, respectively, and b) whether these emotion regulation strategies operate uniquely or transdiagnostically in relation to depression and anxiety. Methods Participants were 187 adults seeking treatment at a mood and anxiety disorders clinic in Connecticut. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures that included assessments of depression and anxiety (Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire), and emotion regulation (Ruminative Response Scale, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale). Results Simple mediation analyses indicated that rumination and worry significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and anxiety symptoms, while rumination and reappraisal significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and depressive symptoms. Multiple mediation analyses showed that worry significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and anxiety symptoms and rumination and reappraisal significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and depressive symptoms. Conclusion Findings suggest that mindfulness operates through distinct and common mechanisms depending on clinical context.

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Background Mindfulness has been associated with anxiety and depression, but the ways in which specific facets of mindfulness relate to symptoms of anxiety and depression remains unclear. The purpose of the current study was to investigate associations between specific facets of mindfulness (e.g., observing, describing, nonjudging, acting with awareness, and nonreactivity) and dimensions of anxiety and depression symptoms (e.g., anxious arousal, general distress-anxiety, general distress-depression, and anhedonic depression) while controlling for shared variance among variables. Methods Participants were 187 treatment-seeking adults. Mindfulness was measured using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured using the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire. Results Bivariate correlations showed that all facets of mindfulness were significantly related to all dimensions of anxiety and depression with two exceptions: describing was unrelated to general distress -anxiety, and observing was unrelated to all symptom clusters. Path analysis was used to simultaneously examine associations between mindfulness facets and depression and anxiety symptoms. Significant and marginally significant pathways were retained to construct a more parsimonious model and model fit indices were examined. The parsimonious model indicated that nonreactivity was significantly inversely associated with general distress anxiety symptoms. Describing was significantly inversely associated with anxious arousal, while observing was significantly positively associated with it. Nonjudging and nonreactivity were significantly inversely related to general distress-depression and anhedonic depression symptomatology. Acting with awareness was not significantly associated with any dimensions of anxiety or depression. Conclusions Findings support associations between specific facets of mindfulness and dimensions of anxiety and depression and highlight the potential utility of targeting these specific aspects of mindfulness in interventions for anxiety and mood disorders.

We developed an interactive, customizable, Web-based program focused on the prevention of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and hepatitis among youth. Results from a randomized, controlled trial with youth in treatment for substance use demonstrated that this Web-based tool, when provided as an adjunct to an educator-delivered prevention intervention, increased accurate prevention knowledge, increased intentions to carefully choose partners, and was perceived as significantly more useful relative to the educator-delivered intervention when provided alone. Results suggest this Web-based program may be effective and engaging and may increase the adoption of effective HIV and disease prevention science for youth. Limitations are discussed.

This study examines the possibility that relational spirituality may be inversely associated with the relatively higher rates of adolescent depression found in girls as compared with boys. Subjects were 615 adolescents, representing a diverse range of religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall spirituality and depression were measured using The Brief-Multidimensional Measure of Religiosity/Spirituality and the Beck Depression Inventory, respectively. Overall, both level of depression and level of relational spirituality were higher in girls as compared with boys. Regression analyses conducted independently for boys and girls revealed that daily spiritual experiences, forgiveness, and religious coping were associated with less-depressive symptomatology exclusively in girls. This pattern in the findings suggests that uniquely in girls, depression may be associated with disruptions in a relational form of spirituality.