The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Anxiety and Rumination in Married Women with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction on anxiety and rumination in married women with generalized anxiety.

The present quasi-experimental study had a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of all married women with a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in Tehran. Among them, we selected 36 women using convenience sampling and randomly put them into experimental and control groups (n=18). To this end, we performed the anxiety pretest by Beck et al. (1988) and rumination pretest by Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow (1993) for both groups (experimental and control), and then implemented the mindfulness training sessions (Kabat-Zinn 2003) for the experimental group in eight 90-minute sessions. After completing the mindfulness training sessions for the experimental group, we performed the anxiety and rumination posttests for both groups and analyzed the results using the analysis of covariance.

The results indicated that mindfulness training was effective in decreasing anxiety (P=0.001, F=17.54), and rumination (P=0.001, F=22.17) in married women with generalized anxiety disorder.

Mindfulness training can be used to reduce and improve anxiety and rumination in anxious married women.