Mindfulness is associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems in urban firefighters.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the association between mindfulness, other resilience resources, and several measures of health in 124 urban firefighters. METHOD: Participants completed health measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems and measures of resilience resources including mindfulness, optimism, personal mastery, and social support. The Mindful Awareness and Attention Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003) was used to assess mindfulness. Participants also completed measures of firefighter stress, number of calls, and years as a firefighter as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with the health measures as the dependent variables with 3 levels of independent variables: (a) demographic characteristics, (b) firefighter variables, and (c) resilience resources. RESULTS: The results showed that mindfulness was associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems when controlling for the other study variables. Personal mastery and social support were also related to fewer depressive symptoms, firefighter stress was related to more PTSD symptoms and alcohol problems, and years as a firefighter were related to fewer alcohol problems. CONCLUSIONS: Mindfulness may be important to consider and include in models of stress, coping, and resilience in firefighters. Future studies should examine the prospective relationship between mindfulness and health in firefighters and others in high-stress occupations.

Who is willing to use complementary and alternative medicine?

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify individual differences associated with the willingness to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). DESIGN: A questionnaire was administered and the relationship between individual differences and the willingness to use CAM was examined using correlation and multiple regression analyses. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of 276 undergraduate students (64% female) of diverse ethnicity (43% white, 33% Hispanic, 8% Native American, 16% other) and a wide range of incomes. MEASURES: The willingness to use 16 types of CAM was assessed for six categories: whole medical systems, mind-body medicine, biologically based practices, manipulative and body-based practices, energy medicine, and spiritually based practices. The individual differences assessed included age, gender, income, ethnicity, the Big Five personality characteristics, optimism, spirituality, religiosity, and three aspects of emotional intelligence: mood attention, mood clarity, and mood repair. RESULTS: The individual differences accounted for approximately one fifth of the variance in overall willingness to use CAM. Openness to experience, spirituality, and mood attention were the strongest predictors of overall willingness to use CAM and were related to the willingness to use most of the individual types of CAM. Older age or female gender was related to greater willingness to use most of the mind-body medicines. Hispanic ethnicity was related to greater willingness to use curanderismo, and Native American ethnicity was related to greater willingness to use Native American medicine and a spiritual/faith healer.