Mindfulness and romantic relationship quality

健康心理学中最有力的发现之一是，低质量的关系使人们面临一系列疾病后果的风险，包括炎症，抑郁症和过早死亡。因此，确定可扩展的干预措施，提高关系质量，从而改善疾病的结果，是一个重要的公共卫生目标。正念干预，鼓励关注和接受当前的经验，是改善关系质量的一个有希望的目标。例如，特质正念较高的人也自我报告具有较高的浪漫关系质量。此外，正念干预改善了自我报告的浪漫关系质量相对于非积极的等待名单控制。来自先前工作的等待列表比较条件使得不清楚正念干预本身或非特定干预因素（例如，积极的治疗期望）推动了积极的关系结果，这是一个重要的限制。因此，关键的下一步是将正念干预与主动控制比较条件进行比较。这个建议的首要目标是实验测试是否正念干预改善关系质量，通过主观和客观的措施，相对于主动控制比较评估。我们在这个探索性的R21中特别关注正念和浪漫关系质量，因为这种关注建立在浪漫关系和疾病结果之间的良好联系之上。来自社区的浪漫夫妇将被随机分配到两个手臂之一：正念与主动控制。这两种干预措施都将在智能手机上完成，为期14天，使用与我们现有已发表研究相同的干预活动。在14天的时间之前和之后，夫妇将参加实验室访问，并提供主观和客观的关系质量数据。在干预前后，参与者还将提供次要健康数据：睡眠质量、自测健康、抑郁症状、个人幸福感、心率、收缩压和舒张压。尽管多篇具有高度影响力的理论论文强调了研究正念干预对关系质量的影响的必要性，但实证工作很少。这种缺乏研究的情况令人惊讶，因为质量差的关系会大大增加发病率和加速死亡的风险。这项研究是测试正念干预作为改善关系质量的第一步。如果R21的目标得以实现，研究小组将利用这些数据提出一项关于正念、关系和疾病结果的更大规模的研究。这项研究计划的长期目标是了解正念干预是否能提高关系质量，从而改善疾病结果。如果这一目标得以实现，研究团队将确定一种可扩展的干预措施，以丰富人们的关系质量，并改善他们的健康状况。在这样做的过程中，这些数据将确定改善的关系质量作为一种新的机制，通过这种机制，正念改变疾病的结果。

One of the most robust findings in health psychology is that poor quality relationships place people at risk for an array of disease outcomes, including inflammation, depression, and premature mortality. Thus, identifying scalable interventions that improve relationship quality, thereby improving disease outcomes, is an essential public health goal. Mindfulness interventions, which encourage attention towards and acceptance of current experiences, are a promising target for improving relationship quality. For example, people who are higher in trait mindfulness also self-report having higher romantic relationship quality. In addition, a mindfulness intervention improved self-reported romantic relationship quality relative to a non-active wait-list control. The wait-list comparison condition from prior work makes it unclear whether the mindfulness intervention itself or non-specific intervention factors (e.g., positive treatment expectancies) were driving positive relationship outcomes, a significant limitation. Thus, a critical next step is to compare a mindfulness intervention to an active control comparison condition. The overarching aim of this proposal is to experimentally test whether a mindfulness intervention improves relationship quality, assessed via both subjective and objective measures, relative to an active control comparison. We focus specifically on mindfulness and romantic relationship quality in this exploratory R21 because this focus builds on a well-established link between romantic relationships and disease outcomes. Romantic couples from the community will be randomly assigned to one of two arms: mindfulness vs. active control. Both interventions will be completed on a smart-phone for 14 days using identical intervention activities as our existing published research. Before and after the 14-day period, couples will attend a lab visit and provide subjective and objective relationship quality data. Before and after the intervention, participants will also provide secondary health data: sleep quality, self-rated health, depressive symptoms, personal well-being, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. Although multiple high impact theoretical papers have underscored the need to examine the effect of a mindfulness intervention on relationship quality, empirical work is sparse. This lack of research is surprising given that poor quality relationships robustly increase risk for morbidity and accelerated mortality. This study is the first step towards testing a mindfulness intervention as a means to improving relationship quality. If the aims of this R21 are achieved, the research team will use these data to propose a larger study about mindfulness, relationships, and disease outcomes. The long-term goal of this research program is to understand whether a mindfulness intervention enhances relationship quality, thereby improving disease outcomes. If this goal is achieved, the research team will have identified a scalable intervention for enriching the quality of people’s relationships, with the downstream consequence of also improving their health. In doing so, these data would identify improved relationship quality as a novel mechanism through which mindfulness alters disease outcomes.