Abstract
Objectives
Undergraduate and graduate students have reported rising rates of anxiety that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly related to heightened intolerance of uncertainty. The present preregistered pilot study investigated whether psychoeducational wellness programs based on behavioral activation or mindfulness were associated with greater improvement in anxiety relative to a survey-only control condition over 8 weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moderating or mediating effects of intolerance of uncertainty were tested.
Method
University students (n = 298) were recruited in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and randomly assigned to one of three groups: one of two psychoeducational wellness programs (based on mindfulness or behavioral activation, respectively) or a survey-only control. Symptoms were assessed longitudinally over 8 weeks. Analyses tested for group differences in anxiety over time, as well as the moderating effect of intolerance of uncertainty at baseline and group differences in changes in intolerance of uncertainty over time.
Results
Results showed that anxiety significantly improved across all groups (p < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.18). Participants in the mindfulness psychoeducational group reported a significantly greater decline in anxiety over the 8 weeks than participants in other (survey-only control or behavioral activation-based) groups (p-values ≤ 0.04, ηp2 ≥ 0.01). Higher engagement (frequency) in either mindfulness or behavioral activation was associated with reduced anxiety (p < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.25). Intolerance of uncertainty neither moderated nor mediated these effects.
Conclusions
Results suggest that scalable, psychoeducation-based programming may reduce anxiety among students, representing a promising option to augment other campus resources.
Preregistration
Analyses were preregistered on Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WX25V) following the completion of data collection; no data visualization or analysis took place prior to the analysis preregistration.