The MAPs program was developed at UCLA (Winston & Smalley, 2010 and Lopez-Maya, 2016) and provides experiential training in mindfulness-based practices, including mindfulness meditation. UCLA-certified instructors delivered the interventions. Active program components include sitting and walking meditations, body scan and loving-kindness meditation. Participants were provided with audio CDs or digital downloads to complete their daily meditation assignments. Sessions were held once per week for 2 hours per session over a period of six consecutive weeks. Home practice assignments consist of daily mindfulness exercises starting with 5 minutes daily, progressing to 20 minutes daily by the end of the program.

The MAPs program was developed at UCLA (Winston & Smalley, 2010) and provides experiential training in mindfulness-based practices, including mindfulness meditation. UCLA-certified instructors delivered the interventions. Active program components include sitting and walking meditations, body scan and loving-kindness meditation. Participants were provided with audio CDs or digital downloads to complete their daily meditation assignments. Sessions were held once per week for 2 hours per session over a period of six consecutive weeks. Home practice assignments consist of daily mindfulness exercises starting with 5 minutes daily, progressing to 20 minutes daily by the end of the program.

The health education condition is a weekly 2-hour, 6 session course aimed at knowledge acquisition in subjects related to health care in general. Similar interventions have been described elsewhere (Black, et al., 2014; Irwin, et al., 2014). A trained health educator provided videos and didactic presentations on topics such as: stress, sleep hygiene, diet & nutrition, sexuality, mental health and substance abuse. The health education condition resembled the MAPs intervention in terms of duration, group format and support, attention and participant expectancy regarding health benefits.

The 6-week intervention aimed at teaching mindfulness-based strategies to participants (in English)

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is a 21-item self-reporting questionnaire for evaluating the severity of depression in normal and psychiatric populations

This instrument is based on a factor analytic study of five independently developed mindfulness questionnaires. The analysis yielded five factors that appear to represent elements of mindfulness as it is currently conceptualized. The five facets are observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experience, and non-reactivity to inner experience.