MIndfulness for Students

The aim of the study is to find out, weather the students' wellbeing and functional ability can be enhanced by two different type of mindfulness interventions: 1) face-to-face group-based training, and 2) internet-based training based in mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy. Study results may be used to decide whether it is worth offering mindfulness training for medical faculty students, and what kind of training would be most suitable and effective in the medical education context.

The hypotheses is that participating to the mindfulness intervention improves students well-being and decreases their level of stress. These are measured by self-evaluation questionnaires and with hair samples, before the intervention, immediately after intervention and four months after the intervention.

This is a randomized control trial. There are two different experiment groups and one waiting-list control group. The target group is all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. The participants are recruited with e-mail and informing students in different situations. The aimed amount of participants is 120-150 but the study will be conducted if 90 participants are recruited. The participants enroll to the study by signing consent format.

This is a follow-up research. The person register (name, university e-mail address, student number) are used to recruitment and to ensure the participants identity.

Time of data preservation is 10 years. The last student register data is going to be collected 2019. The data is preserved until age 2029.

The questionnaire with which the main data is been collected is Webropol questionnaire tool. The data is removed from the Webropol after three months of the end of the questionnaire answer time. The person responsible for the data removes the data from University's server after ten years.

Content of the register

1. Mindfulness for Students questionnaire data
2. Mindfulness for Students hair samples
3. Mindfulness for students -observation log
4. Mindfulness for students -interview data
5. Data collected in Student Compass -internet environment
6. Data of students' credits are collected from University's own credit register "Oodi", if participant has given a consent to that.

Students are being recruited in information meeting. They will be informed orally in that situation and given a written communication paper. The students who want to participate the course, will fill and sign a consent format. In format there is a research number code given to the student. The connection between the student identity and the research code number is known only by the persons that are responsible for the database.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

- All undergraduate students of Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki who have started their studies in year 2009 or after that.

Exclusion Criteria:

* The participants that can not participate fully to the intervention (self-evaluated).
* Participants who have severe mental problems (like anxiety or depression) when the study starts,
* Participants who have hade a great loss or trauma in near past, or some other mental or physical health problem that could make participation difficult.

This is evaluated based on how the participants answers to the base line questionnaire the following measures:

1. answers to the CORE-OM questionnaire and
2. answers to the questions where participants evaluate themselves their anxiety, depression, mental health.
3. If participant tell they have some other mental disorder, they are not accepted to the study.