Relationship between early-life stress and trait mindfulness in adulthood: a correlational study

Background: To investigate the relationship between early-life stress (ELS) and the trait mindfulness level in workers.

Method: This study is quantitative cross-sectional and correlational research with a sample of 929 workers from a Brazilian public university. ELS and mindfulness assessment was performed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-BR (FFMQ-BR), respectively. The data were submitted to correlation tests adopting a significance level of .05 and a multivariate linear regression analysis.

Results: 50.0% of the participants obtained a score indicative of ELS exposure in at least one subtype among the five proposed by the CTQ, with emotional neglect predominating (63.0%). The group not exposed to emotional abuse had higher scores in the "describe-positive formulation" and "non-reactivity to inner experience" facets. Those that scored for physical abuse had higher values in "acting with awareness-autopilot". However, the group exposed to sexual abuse obtained the highest score in the "acting with awareness-autopilot" and "acting with awareness-distraction" facets. The correlation between FFMQ-BR and CTQ overall scores showed a weak correlation with statistical significance. The multiple linear revealed that the facets of mindfulness were significantly associated by at least one type of early stress; however, no significant association was found between CTQ and FFMQ-BR overall results.

Conclusion: The results showed that emotional regulation might have effectively occurred in this specific population, even with the presence of some childhood trauma.