Mechanisms of a brief mindfulness-based intervention in facilitating personal recovery in people with bipolar disorder: A pilot study

Abstract

Introduction: With recovery movement, a humanistic paradigm shift is occurring which puts greater focus on personal recovery instead of functional or clinical recovery. However, for people with bipolar disorder (BD), the fluctuating mood states and self‐stigma issues can interfere with the achievement of personal recovery outcomes. Mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) have the potential to facilitate personal recovery in terms of its underlying elements of awareness and acceptance.

Methods: A 4‐week brief MBI programme was devised for this pilot study. The efficacy and mechanisms of the brief MBI in facilitating personal recovery were evaluated through a randomized controlled trial. Twenty people with BD were recruited and randomly assigned to a brief MBI group and a waiting list control group. Relevant assessments regarding the recovery outcomes and the facilitating mechanism were done before and after intervention.

Results: Participants in the brief MBI group showed significant improvement on the measured variables. Specifically, the primary outcome of personal recovery had a moderate effect size (d = 0.35). Other potential mediators including emotion awareness and regulation as well as illness acceptance showed small to moderate effect sizes (d = 0.22 to 0.38).

Interestingly, there was virtually no effect of treatment on the secondary outcome of functional recovery (d = 0.02).

Conclusions: The findings from this research increase our theoretical understanding of the mechanisms that underlie MBI interventions specifically for personal recovery but not functional recovery. It also provides preliminary support for another treatment option by use of mindfulness in facilitating personal recovery for individuals with BD.