The Effects of Resilience, Mindfulness, and Experiential Avoidance on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptoms: Exploring the Mechanism of Action of a Mindfulness App for College Student Military Veterans with PTSD

Mediation/moderation models provides an expanded understanding of the underlying mechanism of action of a mindfulness-based interventions, particularly how targeted constructs produce their intended benefits. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of resilience on the relationships mindfulness and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and the indirect effect of mindfulness on PTSD through experiential avoidance as a mediator. A cross-sectional study design was used. We employed a convenience sample of 133 college student military veterans through an online survey (Qualtrics) using measures of resilience, mindfulness, experiential avoidance, and PTSD symptoms. To examine the mediating effect of experiential avoidance and the moderating effect of resilience, we used the macro PROCESS (v. 3.5). We found a direct effect of mindfulness on PTSD and a significant mediating effect of experiential avoidance on the relationship between mindfulness and PTSD. Resilience was also found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between mindfulness and PTSD. The major implication of these findings is that higher levels of resilience would strengthen the positive relationship between mindfulness and PTSD and the negative relationship between experiential avoidance and PTSD. This study provides preliminary evidence on the usefulness of integrating resilience development of the mindfulness app we are refining for the next phase of our research study.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/durep_posters/1078/thumbnail.jp