Evaluation of a Brief Mindfulness-Based Intervention to Reduce Psychological Distress in the Workplace

Employees of a call center working for a financial institution took part in a brief mindfulness-based intervention (MBI). Each day, during five consecutive weeks, they listened to two short guided meditation sessions using a headset at their workstation (10 min in the morning and 5 min after lunch). A pretest-post-test switching-replication design was used to assess changes in mindfulness, psychological distress, and client satisfaction over the course of the intervention. During the first portion of the study, group 1 (n=18) acted as the intervention group while group 2 (n=25) acted as the control group. During the second portion, the intervention was replicated, and the roles of the two groups were switched. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires at baseline (t1), week 6 (t2), and week 11 (t3) and examined using both analysis of variance and prediction analysis. The results showed that mindfulness increased while psychological distress (stress, anxiety/depression, fatigue, and negative affect) decreased for all employees throughout the intervention, especially among those with low mindfulness scores at baseline. The satisfaction level of the employees' internal clients significantly increased over time, although the effect size was small. This article contributes to the field of mindfulness at work by (1) introducing a novel MBI specifically designed for call centers, (2) assessing the impact of the intervention on client satisfaction, and (3) doing so using a research design and a statistical technique which have never been used in mindfulness studies.