Is mindfulness only for the fortunate? The development and dissemination of a brief home-based mindfulness intervention to low-income couples

Low-income individuals tend to experience greater psychosocial and relationship stressors than higher-income individuals. Although mindfulness is documented to reduce both individual and relationship stress, research has yet to examine mindfulness among low-income populations. Low-income populations experience greater barriers to engaging in typical approaches to therapy (e.g., transportation, child-care). In response to these barriers, briefer, home-based, treatments have been found to be a successful solution to reaching these populations. Given that mindfulness has the flexibility to be taught anywhere (e.g., home), it may be a useful tool to disseminate to low-income couples. The present study used a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to design a brief mindfulness intervention, tailored toward couples, that could be delivered in a home or clinic format. The program was piloted to a sample that overrepresented low-income couples. First, we worked with a team of community partners to develop a brief, two-session, mindfulness intervention. We conducted two focus groups with low-income individuals to determine their attitudes about mindfulness and how to make this brief intervention most useful for this population. Themes from these focus groups were identified using grounded theory and adaptations to the intervention manual were made to tailor this program to be most useful to low-income populations. Upon completion of the manual development, we began the intervention phase of the study. This phase aimed to determine whether this intervention improved individual and relationship functioning, what mechanisms are responsible for change in relationship functioning, and identify which facets of mindfulness are most relevant to individaul and relationship funcitoning. Thirty-nine couples completed the brief, two-session, intervention and completed assessments on individual (i.e., mindfulness, depression, anxiety, and stress) and relationship functioning (i.e., relationship satisfaction and communication) at baseline, 1-month and 2-months post-intervention for both higher-income and low-income populations. Results revealed that mindfulness can be taught in a brief, two-session, format and create change in individual and relationship functioning up to 2-months post-intervention. Additionally, mindfulness facets related to individual and relationship functioning differed across economic groups. Mindfulness is not “one size fits all. Consideration of what components of mindfulness work best for whom is indicated.