Mindfulness based interventions for depression and anxiety in Asian Population: A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) have emerged as effective interventions for various psychiatric conditions including depression and anxiety. Asia being home to Buddhist tradition, it will be interesting to explore the trend and efficacy of MBIs in Asian population in Asian settings. The aim of this study is to perform a systematic review of mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) for management of depression and anxiety (disorders or symptoms) in Asian population.
 Material And Method: Two researchers independently searched for literature published between January 2007 to December 2018 in Medline, Google Scholar, PsychInfo and Cochrane library using the search terms - ‘Mindfulness/Vipassana’ combined with ‘meditation’, ‘intervention’ ‘therapy’, ‘depression', ‘anxiety’ ‘Asia’ etc. Further, publications were also identified from the references recited in the retrieved articles. After screening 185 articles and applying the eligibility criteria, 40 articles were finally selected for the systematic review.
 Results: Out of 40 selected articles, 33 articles were controlled trials and 7 had a pre-post test design without any control group. Most of the published studies have evaluated MBCT and MBSR for depressive and anxiety symptoms in different settings. Some of the studies have tested traditional Buddhist meditation and modified models. Overall, MBCT and MBSR seem to be efficacious over ‘routine treatment’ or ‘no treatment’ control for reducing depressive and anxiety symptoms at the end of the treatment. Studies which have modified MBIs based on MBCT/MBSR models have also demonstrated their feasibility and short term efficacy in specific populations like medical professionals with evidence for short term efficacy.
 Conclusion: Overall, there is emerging evidence of MBIs for depression and anxiety across diverse settings in Asia. Future research should address methodological limitations of current research to strengthen the evidence.

The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Interventions as Therapy from Buddhist Perspective on Clinical Psychotherapy of Depression

“…For instance, depression with multiple depression, comorbidities and long-term dysfunction. As mentioned above, the reason why MBI has been criticized is mainly because many scholars believe that it can only serve as a short-term intervention treatment, and the research of [23] also showed that currently in Asia, there was no exploration the role of MBI in the long-term prevention of relapse in patients with depression. Therefore, this is also the direction that future research needs to be explored in depth.…”

“…A systematic review showed that MBI is still acceptable in different countries and social and cultural environments in Asia, and effective clinical interventions can be carried out. [23] MBI has been found to improve emotional self-regulation in patients with depression. And after MBI, related symptoms of mental disorders can also be decreased correspondingly.…”

Culturally Adapting an Internet-Delivered Mindfulness Intervention for Indonesian University Students Experiencing Psychological Distress: Mixed Methods Study

“…Although mindfulness practice may help people connect with their spiritual beliefs and practices [28], it originally stemmed from Buddhist meditation practice. Thus, many studies in other LMICs examining the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions have been conducted in countries with some dominant practice of Buddhism, such as China; Thailand; Vietnam; or other populations that are familiar with meditation practice, such as India [33]. In Indonesia, the dominant religious practice is not Buddhism, with approximately 85% of the…”