Mindfulness-based wellbeing for socio-economically disadvantaged parents: a pre-post pilot study

Purpose – Behavioural parent training (PT) interventions partially mediate risk factors for the development of child behavioural problems. Mindfulness skills could have benefit in alleviating the impact of these risk factors for parents who are socio-economically disadvantaged. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A pre-post single group comparison of disadvantaged mothers attending the Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing for Parents (MBW-P) programme. Findings – Changes were observed in facets of parental stress (Parenting Stress Index-Short Form; Abidin, 1995), depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II; Beck et al., 1996) and brooding (Ruminative Responses Scale; Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow, 1991), with moderate to large effect sizes and incidences of clinical change. Research limitations/implications – The research design, although pragmatic, includes a small sample and no control or long-term comparison group. Social implications – Mothers considered as the “hardest to reach” group in terms of vulnerability, risk factors and being likely to gain from intervention demonstrated positive shifts post-intervention. A targeted mindfulness-based intervention, delivered pragmatically within a health service context, may have benefit in reducing the impact of risk factors on parental wellbeing. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first evaluation of a targeted mindfulness group delivered within routine health care settings, in identified “high risk” areas, by routine staff.