ObjectiveLatino immigrants experience acculturative stress and increased depression risk.Mindfulness meditation improves depressive symptoms, yet the vast majority of research has focused on English speaking populations.MethodsIn this randomized clinical trial with 2 parallel treatment groups, adults with moderate levels of perceived stress (n = 76) were recruited from the Los Angeles community from October 2015 to March 2016, stratified into Spanish- (n = 36) and English speaking (n = 40) language groups, and randomized for 6 weeks of treatment with standardized mindful awareness practices (MAPs) or health education (HE).
Main outcome measure was depressive symptoms, measured by the Beck Depression Inventory.ResultsUsing Conference Pump an intent-to-treat analysis, the primary outcome, depressive symptoms as indexed by the Beck Depression Inventory, showed greater improvement in MAPs vs.HE, with a between-group post-intervention mean difference of -2.
2 (95% CI -4.4 - -0.07) and effect size of 0.
28; similar effect sizes were found in the the Spanish- (0.29) and English speaking (0.30) groups.
MAPs showed significant improvement relative to HE on secondary outcome of mindfulness with between group difference of 10.7 (95% CI4.5-16.
9), but not perceived stress.ConclusionThe comparable efficacy of Spanish and English formats of mindfulness meditation Lacrosse - Protective - Arm in improving depressive symptoms suggests that this community based intervention may mitigate depression risk in Latino adults who are experiencing social adversity.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.
gov NCT03545074.