Changes in stress-related outcomes among graduate students following the Mindfulness Ambassador Program: A pilot study

Varsha Vasudevan; Benjamin Tran; Shauna M Burke; Patricia Tucker; Jennifer D Irwin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0313499

Changes in stress-related outcomes among graduate students following the Mindfulness Ambassador Program: A pilot study

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 16;20(1):e0313499. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0313499. eCollection 2025.

Authors

Varsha Vasudevan¹, Benjamin Tran¹, Shauna M Burke^{1

2

3}, Patricia Tucker^{3

4}, Jennifer D Irwin^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Program, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Health Sciences Building, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
² School of Health Studies, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Health Sciences Building, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
³ Children's Health Research Institute, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ School of Occupational Therapy, Elborn College, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Objectives: Graduate students face numerous demands, high stress levels, and associated challenges to intra- and inter-personal relationships. Mindfulness may help to ease such challenging experiences. The Mindfulness Ambassador Program (MAP) is a promising group-based program that has not yet been studied among graduate students. The primary objectives of this study were to: (1) explore graduate students' perceptions of stress, and their relationships with themselves and meaningful others; (2) explore graduate students' perspectives of and satisfaction with the MAP; and (3) investigate if participation in the MAP elicited changes in graduate students' perceived levels of stress, self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and/or social connectedness.

Methods: In this one-group, pre/post mixed-methods pilot study, nine participants completed pre-post questionnaires and participated in a semi-structured interview post-intervention. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, thematic analysis, and paired t-tests.

Results: Pre-intervention, qualitative themes included participants experiencing moderate-to-high stress levels, intrapersonal conflict, interpersonal relationship challenges, and seeing oneself as a work in progress. Post-intervention themes included better stress management, increased consideration for oneself and others, feelings of connection with others, and overall satisfaction with the MAP. Statistically significant improvements were found from pre- to post-intervention in mean score differences for perceived stress (p = .043), private self-awareness (p = .006), awareness of immediate surroundings (p = .044), and social connectedness (p = .006).

Conclusions: Participants reported several benefits from their positive experience participating in the MAP. These findings may be used to inform future mindfulness-based programming for graduate students.

Copyright: © 2025 Vasudevan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Adult
Education, Graduate
Female
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Mindfulness*
Pilot Projects
Stress, Psychological* / psychology
Students* / psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Young Adult

Grants and funding

This manuscript draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). JDI was the principal applicant of the SSHRC Explore grant, where SMB and PT were co-applicants. VV was supported by the above-noted SSHRC Explore grant and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s. VV, BT, SMB, PT, and JDI contributed to study design, decision to publish, and the preparation of the manuscript.