Acceptability of Mindfulness-Based Intervention among Women with Substance Use Disorder

Research on acceptability of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for populations with substance use disorders (SUD) is extremely limited. Intervention development and testing guidelines note that acceptability of the intervention by the target population is important for retention, efficacy, and intervention integrity. Yet, MBIs for SUD studies have not measured acceptability or have done so in a cursory manner, therefore, the question remains of whether MBIs are acceptable to populations in SUD treatment. The proposed study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by undertaking a conceptually-grounded empirical approach to assess acceptability of Moment-by-Moment in Women’s Recovery (MMWR), which is an MBI for women with SUD. This document is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and provides background literature. Chapter 2 systematically reviews MBIs for SUD studies to assess measurement of acceptability. Chapter 3 analyzes the psychometric properties of two acceptability surveys used in MMWR. Chapter 4 examines the associations among the acceptability surveys, personal characteristics of the participants, and application of intervention techniques. And Chapter 5 summarizes the previous chapters and discusses future directions for this line of work. There is a need for a greater understanding of which factors may influence participants’ abilities to accept an intervention. The results identify sociodemographic and clinical characteristics that can inform future intervention adaptations, screening, or pre-intervention programs to increase efficiency of SUD intervention delivery and relevance. The long-term goal is to improve fit and efficacy of MBIs for SUD for minority and underrepresented populations.