Abstract
Background & Objectives: Due to the high importance of mental health in different sections of society and the pivotal role of psychology, promoting students' mental health can help uphold mental health in society. Mindfulness is one of the factors affecting self–acceptance and positive interaction with others. They are necessary elements to develop mental health. Mindfulness means moment–by–moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and the environment. Mindfulness–based interventions, considered one of the third–wave cognitive–behavioral therapies, emphasize flexible attention, openness, and curiosity. As an ability to confront difficult situations and a flexible response to the pressures of daily life, resilience is among the examples of mental health. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is one of the psychological characteristics of an individual that includes a set of emotions and abilities that increase a person's ability to cope, control, and create proper functioning in self–awareness, social awareness, relationship management, and self–management. This study investigated mindfulness's effectiveness on resiliency with emotional intelligence as the moderator.
Methods: The research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest and a 3–month follow–up design with a control group. The study's target population consisted of psychology students who were studying at Islamic Azad University, Tehran Science Research Branch, in the academic year 2019–2020. Data were collected using the Bar–On Emotional Quotient Inventory (cited in 26). A total of 60 students with an emotional quotient less than 3 standard deviations below the mean and 60 students with an emotional quotient more than 3 standard deviations above the mean were purposively selected (a total number of 120 subjects). They were randomly assigned to the experimental (30 subjects) and control groups (30 subjects). Before the intervention, the experimental group completed the Conner–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD–RIS) (Conner & Davidson, (2003). Then, the experimental group received 8 sessions of mindfulness, whereas the control group did not receive any intervention. After the mindfulness treatment, the resiliency of the control and experimental group students was measured again (immediately and 3 months later). Central and dispersion indices such as mean and standard deviation were used to describe the variables. It is worth mentioning that variance analysis with repeated measurements, the Tukey post hoc test, and the Chi–square test were used for data analysis. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 22 software. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.
Results: The findings showed that analysis of variance was significant for the intragroup factor of time (p<0.001), the intergroup factor of emotional intelligence (p<0.001), and the intergroup factor of mindfulness intervention (p<0.001). In the experimental group, the average scores of the resilience variable in the posttest and follow–up phases were significantly higher than in the pretest (p<0.001). Also, no significant difference was observed between the follow–up and post–test stages in the average scores of the resilience variable (p=0.775), which indicated the persistence of mindfulness therapy in improving resilience in the follow–up phase.
Conclusions: According to the findings, mindfulness training can play a significant role in improving the resilience of students by moderating the role of emotional intelligence.