6-Week student wellness program improves psychological wellbeing of students

Abstract

Objective: Employing a waitlist control design, the current study examined the effectiveness of a shortened version of a newly developed wellness program. Participants/Methods: Twenty-four students were randomly assigned to an experimental wellness (EW) group or a waitlist control (WLC) group. The 6-week wellness program focused on specific wellness topics (i.e., relaxation and mindfulness, yoga, gratitude and self-compassion, emotion regulation, goal setting and time management, and nutrition and movement). Both mental health and wellbeing outcomes were examined pre-post group. Results/Conclusions: Findings revealed that the EW group reported significantly improved overall psychological wellbeing, optimism, self-compassion, and satisfaction with life following the program relative to baseline, but the WLC group did not.

Keywords:

• Mental health
• student wellness
• wellbeing
• wellness program

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Marquette University.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.