Mindful Self-compassion and Perfectionism

August 16, 2021 updated by: University of Bergen

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Mindful Self-compassion Intervention to Improve Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism, Depression, Anxiety, and Unhealthy Body Image in College Students

The study is a randomized controlled study. A total of 200 students will be invited to participate in a 5-session mindful self-compassion course aimed at increasing self-compassion and reducing maladaptive perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy body image. Self-compassion is the ability to show oneself kindness in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, and suffering by attending to distressing experiences with kindness, mindfulness, and the ability to recognize these as a part of a shared humanity. Twelve participants will be randomly selected for pre- and post interviews to qualitatively evaluate outcome. Ten participants with high perfectionistic tendencies will be selected to participate in a narrative life story interview.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The investigators will test four hypotheses:

  1. At baseline, low levels of maladaptive perfectionism, and lower levels of depression, anxiety and body appreciation - reversed, will be related to greater self-compassion. The investigators expect high level of maladaptive perfectionism to be related to lower baseline self-compassion, higher levels of depression and anxiety and lower levels of body appreciation.
  2. The intervention, a five session self-compassion intervention, will be sufficient to induce positive changes in perfectionism and psychological symptoms of anxiety, depression and body-appreciation- reversed.
  3. Changes in self-compassion will co-vary with changes in maladaptive perfectionism and body appreciation.
  4. Higher baseline levels of maladaptive perfectionism will predict greater gains from the intervention, because perfectionistic students will have greater need for a self-compassion intervention.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

379

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Norway
    • Hordaland
      • Bergen, Hordaland, Norway, 5020
        • University of Bergen

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • College/university students

Exclusion Criteria:

  • N/A

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control group
Receiving no intervention (control groups will be offered the intervention after the experimental group has completed the course)
Experimental: Active group
Receiving Mindful Self-Compassion intervention
Behavioral: Mindful Self-Compassion
Mindful self-compassion is a course developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer designed to cultivate self-compassion as measured by three subcategories: self-kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of common humanity. This study will shorten the original 8-week course to 5 sessions, and will include interventions and lectures aimed directly toward addressing evaluative concerns perfectionism.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in perfectionism
Time Frame: Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Adaptive perfectionism as measured by the "Personal Standards" subscale and maladaptive perfectionism/evaluative concerns perfectionism as measured by "Doubts about Actions" and "Concern over Mistakes" subscales of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. Personal Standards consists of seven items (6 items for "pure personal standards"), Doubt about Actions consists of four items, and Concern over Mistakes consists of 9 items. All items are on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to disagree with higher scores indicating most perfectionistic tendencies. Full range: 20-100 with higher scores representing more perfectionistic tendencies. Evaluative concerns perfectionism range: 13-65, higher scores indicate more evaluative concerns perfectionism. Personal standards range: 7-35 with higher scores indicating higher personal standards.
Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in body image
Time Frame: Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, one week after last session, 6 months after intervention
Body image as measured by the 13 item Body Appreciation Scale consisting of a 5-point Likert scale. Range: 13-65, lower scores indicating no body appreciation and higher scores indicating greater body appreciation.
Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, one week after last session, 6 months after intervention
Change in depressive tendencies
Time Frame: Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Depressive tendencies as measured by the 12 item Major Depression Inventory which measures symptoms of depression on a 6-point Likert scale (not at all to all of the time), range: 12-72, with higher scores indicating more symptoms of depression.
Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Change in anxiety
Time Frame: Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Anxiety as measured by the 20 item "trait subscale" of the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. The Inventory consists of a 4-point Likert scale (almost never to almost always), range: 20-80, higher scores indicating greater anxiety.
Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Change in self-compassion
Time Frame: Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention
Assessment of self-compassion with the Self-Compassion Scale short form.Total score range from 12 (no self-compassion) to 60 (high on self-compassion). Higher values represent greater self-compassion, lower scores indicate no self-compassion.
Baseline (two for control group), one week prior to intervention, every week for four weeks until completion of intervention (including one week after last session), 6 months after intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Bergen

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Per-Einar Binder, PhD, University of Bergen

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 3, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2019

Study Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2019

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 16, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 2, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

March 5, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 17, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 16, 2021

Last Verified

August 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • UiBMSC2018

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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