Document Type
Article
Abstract
Introduction: Mindfulness-based interventions train participants to pay attention to their own emotions in the current moment without judging themselves. This study aims to assess the attitudes toward a mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention among African American women living with HIV. Methods: We collected qualitative data from three focus group discussions with 18 African American women living with HIV who were purposely recruited from the Palmetto Health-USC Immunology Center in South Carolina, United States. The participants discussed how they coped with stress, and then were given a presentation on mindfulness-based stress reduction and a sample mindfulness-based stress reduction mini workshop with follow-up discussion about their thoughts and opinions on the information presented to them. Results: Participants said that mindfulness could be a useful technique and they were interested in participating in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Their main concerns included physical ability to perform some of the mindfulness techniques (e.g. yoga) and logistic barriers, such as schedule constraints. They also provided some suggestions to further tailor the mindfulness-based stress reduction, such as modifying yoga, using familiar terms, and combining both in person and online components. These results suggest that African American women living with HIV showed strong interest in mindfulness-based stress reduction and a high level of willingness to participate in mindfulness-based stress reduction, but the existing mindfulness-based stress reduction program needs to be tailored to address challenges and barriers these women may face for attendance and completion. Conclusion: The next step is to further test the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy through a pilot study for African American women living with HIV to practice a tailored mindfulness-based stress reduction for this group.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Sage Open Medicine, Volume 9, 2021.
Rights
© The Author(s) 2021 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
APA Citation
Taylor, S., Qiao, S., Weissman, S., & Li, X. (2021). Attitudes toward a mindfulness-based intervention from African American women living with HIV: A qualitative study. SAGE Open Medicine, 9.https://doi.org/10.1177/20503121211025144