| Abstract [eng] |
Around 70 % of people have experienced at least one traumatic event during their lives. Some of them suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can significantly impair daily functioning. In Lithuania, this disorder is still rarely recognized and specialized trauma oriented psychological help is not easily available. The availability could be improved by providing internet-based psychological interventions. One of such possible ways is mindfulness based internet interventions, that may specifically target PTSD symptoms. The aim of this study is to evaluate how mental health of traumatized youth changed after internet-based mindfulness intervention. 25 university students, who have experienced traumatic events, participated in the study (96% female; age: M = 23,32; SD = 3,0), 12 from them met high PTSD risk criteria. Participants used eight-week internet-based mindfulness intervention (s). Their mental health was evaluated before and after the intervention. For measuring PTSD symptoms (based on ICD-11) International Trauma Questionnaire was used (ITQ, Cloitre et al., 2018), depression symptoms were assessed with Patient Mental Health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9, Spitzer et al., 2000), anxiety symptoms with Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale-7 (GAD-7, Spitzer et al., 2006) and positive mental health with Positive Mental Health scale (PMH scale, Lukat et al., 2016). The results showed that, after the intervention, PTSD symptoms lowered significantly in the high PTSD risk group and the intervention was most effective at reducing trauma related avoidance symptoms. No significant changes in depression, anxiety and positive mental health were found. Changes in PTSD symptoms were not related to the type of trauma, the time after the trauma and number of traumatic events. It was also found that the more PTSD symptoms reduced, the less depression and anxiety participants reported and the stronger their positive mental health was. |
