Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Low-Income, Predominantly African American Women With PTSD and a History of Intimate Partner Violence.

In this article, we consider the use of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn, 1991) as a community-based intervention to reduce health disparities for low-income, predominantly African American women with a history of intimate partner violence (IPV) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This article presents our rationale for using MBSR as an intervention with this population, the details of its implementation, and a discussion of the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention based on participants' feedback and our observations. We conclude that the use of MBSR programs for low-income, predominantly African American women with PTSD and a history of IPV is both feasible (of initial interest to and completed by most participants) and acceptable (congruent with and relevant to their needs). Replication with larger samples and examination of mechanisms is warranted by these findings.
KEYWORDS:
MBSR, PTSD, chronic trauma, intimate partner violence, low-income, mindfulness

PMID: 24043922 [PubMed] PMCID: PMC3772725 [Available on 2014/2/1]