The Effect of Mindfulness-Based and Acceptance Commitment Therapy-Based Interventions to Improve the Mental Well-Being Among Parents of Children with Developmental Disabilities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Joelle Yan Xin Chua, Shefaly Shorey
PMID 34181139WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with developmental disabilities who took part in mindfulness or ACT programmes reported less stress, anxiety and depression straight afterwards, a review of 10 trials found.
The authors rate that evidence very low quality, and parents' own mindfulness did not improve.
Key findings
01Parents in the mindfulness or ACT groups rated their stress lower than control-group parents straight after the programme. Across 8 trials and 563 parents this was a medium-sized difference (standardised mean difference -0.50), with results varying substantially between the trials (I² = 77%).
02Anxiety and depression were also lower in the intervention groups straight after the programme: -0.63 among 185 parents for anxiety and -0.72 among 389 parents for depression, both favouring the intervention.
03Neither measure of parents' own mindfulness improved. Mindfulness in how parents relate to their child barely moved across 280 parents (p = 0.96), and general mindfulness awareness was slightly better in the control group, though not significantly so, across 64 parents (p = 0.62).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only English-language trials and dissertations were included, which the authors say may bias the results. Parents rated their own stress, anxiety, depression and mindfulness, so they may have reported what they thought the researchers wanted to hear. Seven of the ten included studies had small samples. With only 10 studies in the review and 8 in the main analysis, some of the comparisons between subgroups of studies contained just one or two studies. Only four studies took any follow-up measurements, and only one of those had control-group data, so the review says nothing reliable about whether any benefit lasts. Only scores from the end of each trial were combined, so differences between the groups before the programme started were not taken into account. Four of the five outcomes were rated very low quality, which means the true effects may be quite different from the estimates reported here. Almost every programme was run in a group, so the authors say parents may have felt better because of the contact with other parents in the same position rather than the mindfulness teaching itself. The review could not examine whether the child's age or type of disability mattered, or the influence of parents' ethnicity or religion, because the trials mixed these groups together.
Declared interests
The article text does not state who funded the review and contains no declaration of competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that mindfulness or ACT programmes help these parents. The authors rated the evidence for stress, anxiety and depression as very low quality, seven of the ten studies were small, every outcome was rated by the parents themselves, and nine of the ten programmes ran in groups, so parents may have felt better simply from spending time with other parents in the same position. The review could not separate the two.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →