MYRIAD project study details published

MYRIAD project study details published

The full details of a randomised controlled trial in the MYRIAD project have recently been published. The primary aim of the trial is to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a mindfulness training (MT) programme to enhance mental health, wellbeing and social-emotional behavioural functioning in adolescence.

In the UK, the annual economic cost of mental health problems has been estimated at £105 billion. Mental health problems commonly have their first onset in adolescence, which is a period of heightened vulnerability associated with reduced attentional, emotional and behavioural regulation in the face of growing demands. In fact, 50% of adults with psychiatric disorders experience clinically impairing psychopathology before age 15 years, and 75% by age 24 years.

Mindfulness-based approaches for adults have been shown to be effective at enhancing mental health, but until recently few controlled trials have evaluated their effectiveness or cost-effectiveness for young people.

The MYRIAD study will contribute to establishing if mindfulness training is an effective and cost-effective approach to promoting mental health in adolescence.

The research question is: ‘Does MT have the potential in adolescents to shift the population away from psychopathology and towards improved mental health and wellbeing by addressing key processes of mental regulation and executive control that operate across the spectrum of risk/resilience?’.

The design will be a superiority, cluster randomised controlled, parallel-group trial in which schools offering social and emotional provision in line with good practice will be randomised to either continue this provision (control) or include MT in this provision (intervention). The study will recruit and randomise 76 schools and 5700 school students aged 12 to 14 years, followed up for 2 years.

The full paper, The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a mindfulness training programme in schools compared with normal school provision (MYRIAD): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial, was published in BioMed Central on 26 April 2017. The paper is authored by Willem Kuyken, Elizabeth Nuthall, Sarah Byford, Catherine Crane, Tim Dalgleish, Tamsin Ford, Mark T. Greenberg, Obioha C. Ukoumunne, Russell M. Viner, J. Mark G. Williams and the MYRIAD team. The article is published open access and is freely accessible to all.