7^th European Autism Congress

Stress, Depression, Anxiety and Mindfulness

We examined aspects of mindfulness-based interventions (describing, non-judging, non-reactivity, and awareness), three components of emotion regulation- empathy (emotion judgment, emotion differentiation, and emotion regulation), emotion regulation effectiveness, and dispositional mindfulness as predictors of depression, anxiety, stress, and substance use among 204 students in the USA. Mindful describing and non-judging, along with dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation effectiveness, predicted substance use. After controlling for emotion regulation effectiveness, emotion regulation components and dispositional mindfulness, aspects of mindfulness-based interventions contributed to a significant improvement in predicting depression, anxiety, stress, and substance use. We confirmed the importance of mindful non-judging in predicting depression (negatively) and substance use and identified the specific contributions of mindful describing for depression (again) and substance use. We outlined the value of mindful non-reactivity (again) for stress and anxiety. Additionally, we confirmed the importance of emotion judgment and differentiation for depression and of emotion regulation for stress. Lastly, we outlined dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation effectiveness as predictors of substance use. The present findings highlight the importance of examining mindfulness-based interventions, emotion regulation components, emotion regulation effectiveness, and dispositional mindfulness together in predicting depression, anxiety, stress, and substance use.