Mindfulness Intervention for College Students with ADHD

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Project Summary/Abstract Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that commonly persists into adulthood. Stimulant and non-stimulant pharmacotherapies are the mainstay of treatment; however, non- pharmacological interventions such as mindfulness have significant empirical support. The Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs) for ADHD program, an 8-week, group-based mindfulness program for adults with ADHD, has been shown to reduce ADHD, depression, and anxiety symptoms. While promising, it is unknown as to whether the MAPs protocol is feasible, acceptable, and efficacious for college students with ADHD. The current study takes the first step towards enhanced study of mindfulness for college students with ADHD by testing the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an adapted MAPs protocol delivered within university counseling center settings during the first semester of college. First-year college students with ADHD will be recruited through the University of Alabama’s Office of Disability Services and Wofford College’s Accessibility Services. After developing and beta testing an adapted MAPs intervention at both sites, students will be randomized to adapted MAPs or Services-As-Usual (SAU; standard academic support services provided by university disability/accessibility offices). Groups will include 10 first-year students and will be run over a 2-year period in the fall semesters (i.e., 4 MAPs groups across the two sites; total MAPs n = 40; total SAU n = 40). MAPs groups will be led by trained therapists in university counseling centers. Assessments will occur at pre, post, and 6-month follow-up using measures of ADHD, sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), anxiety, and depression symptoms along with emotion regulation and mindfulness, our hypothesized mechanisms of change. Aims of the project are to: 1) adapt, manualize, and beta test the intervention, 2) conduct a pilot RCT of adapted MAPs compared to SAU and examine feasibility and acceptability measures and clinical outcomes, and 3) examine whether the adapted MAPs intervention changes the targets hypothesized to be associated with changes in clinical outcomes (i.e., emotional regulation, mindfulness). If adequate feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy are documented, mindfulness for college students with ADHD can continue to be evaluated in larger trials. If ultimately found to be efficiacious, this protocol has the potential to be widely disseminated within college counseling centers to have a broader public health impact for college students with ADHD. It should be noted that the importance of developmental transitions for those with ADHD has been highlighted in recent funding opportunities at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). For example, funding opportunities have focused on developmental transitions broadly (RF-MH-20-100) as well as specific transitions such as the preschool to elementary school transition (RFA-MH-21-230) with the goal to “prevent or forestall the emergence of co-occurring disorders or additional ADHD-related impairments.”