Efficacy of an online intervention for anxiety prevention: A clinical trial.

This study aimed to test the effectiveness and the sustained effect (follow-up) of a four-week mindfulness intervention in reducing anxiety and stress in a group of Brazilian university students. The intervention was adapted to be made available through the Neurosaúde application, created as part of this work to serve as a platform for the intervention. The research took place in a virtual environment, with 48 participants recruited, who were randomly allocated to the intervention group or to the waiting list control group. Measures were used to access the levels of mindfulness, anxiety, and stress before and after the intervention and at the 4-week follow-up. Applying the intention-to-treat analysis, we found significant differences between the groups regarding the measurement of anxiety in the follow-up, with a large effect size (F(2, 92) = 10.275, p = .000, X2 = 0.183). The results suggest that the 4-week mindfulness intervention through a mobile application was able to act as a protective factor against the anxiety developed by university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the treatment group maintained reduced levels of anxiety the control group demonstrated a continuous increase in anxiety in the post-test and follow-up that coincided with the first wave of COVID-19 in the region where the participants lived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]