Comparison of the Effectiveness of Compassion Group Training and Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction in Mental Well-being of Female Students with Academic Stress

Mental well-being is one of the most important aspects of studentschr('39') mental health which results from personal cognitive and emotional perception of the whole life. The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of compassion group training and mindfulness-based stress reduction in subjective well-being of female students with academic stress in Farhangian University of Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari.

The present quasi-experimental study was conducted based on a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of all 350 female students of Farhangian University of Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari province in the academic year of 2018-2019. A number of 150 students were randomly selected from among all the students; therafter, 90 students with higher academic stress scores were selected as the final sample and were randomly assigned to three groups of 30 subjects (two experimental and one control group).In all the three groups, the subjective well-being questionnaire was completed as a pre-test, and post-test and follow-up were performed for all the three groups after the intervention. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (including analysis of variance and covariance).

As evidenced by the obtained results, compassion training and mindfulness-based stress reduction training had a significant effect on increasing subjective well-being (P<0.001). Moreover, the results of analysis of variance test demonstrated that the difference between the mean scores of the two experimental groups was significant at the level of 0.05. These differences can be attributed to the greater effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction training on reducing negative emotions, increasing psychological and social well-being.

Based on the results of the currents study, both methods (especially mindfulness-based stress reduction training) can be used to increase studentschr('39') subjective well-being.