84 Chapter 5 Recruitment and eligibility criteria Teachers were recruited via schoolboards, presentations at school and social media. Teachers received an information letter and signed up for the study by contacting the research team or filling out an online form. Inclusion criteria were 1) teaching in the same group for at least two days a week during a school year between September and March; 2) willing to participate in the three measurements; and 3) available to start the MBSR intervention in September and March. Teachers were excluded if they had participated in an MBI before that lasted for more than three hours. Teachers were asked to sign an informed consent form. Data collection Data was collected through an online self-report questionnaire at pre-test, post-test and three-month follow-up. Participants received the questionnaires via e-mail. When participants did not complete the questionnaire within five days, they received a reminder. If no response followed, participants were called and asked to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaires were processed anonymously in an online software system. Intervention The intervention in this study was the MBSR-program developed by Kabat-Zinn (2013). The intervention involved 8 weekly group sessions with 6 to 15 participants. The intervention was provided by a qualified mindfulness teacher who was supervised by a licensed MBSR supervisor once or twice during the MBSR-program. Each session lasted 120 minutes and consisted of different parts: (a) meditation exercises, (b) dialogue and (c) psychoeducation about stress and stress responses. The participants had to practice every day for at least 35 minutes and received a folder with information about the sessions. The attendance of the participants in each session was noted. More information about the intervention, can be found in Lensen et al. (2021). Measures Perceived stress Perceived stress was measured with the Dutch version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, Andreou et al., 2011; Cohen et al., 1983). The PSS contains 10 items measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from (1) ‘never’ to (5) ‘all the time’. An example of an item is: ‘In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and stressed?’. Higher scores on the total sum score indicate a higher level of perceived stress. In this study, the PSS at baseline had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86 and a McDonald’s omega of 0.89. Well-being Well-being was measured with the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form (MHCSF, Lamers et al., 2011). The MHC-SF consists of 14 items that assess emotional, psychological, and social well-being, for example ‘During the past month, how often did
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw