Who Benefits Most from a Brief Mindfulness Intervention to Reduce Anxiety During Stereotactic Breast Biopsy: the Moderating Effect of Trait Mindfulness, Spiritual Well-being, and Distress Tolerance

Objectives This study examined trait mindfulness, spiritual well-being, and distress tolerance as moderators of the effect of a brief mindfulness intervention on anxiety reported during stereotactic breast biopsy (SBB). Methods This is a secondary analysis of an RCT examining guided meditation (GM; n = 30), focused breathing (FB; n = 30), or standard care (SC; n = 16) on anxiety for women undergoing SBB. Women in GM and FB were guided through their respective interventions for 10 min before and during biopsy. Anxiety (0–10 visual analogue scale), trait mindfulness (FFMQ), spiritual well-being (FACIT-SP), and discomfort intolerance (DI) were assessed at baseline, and anxiety was assessed every 4 min during SBB. Multilevel modeling examined moderator-by-group-by-time interactions. Significant 3-way interactions were decomposed using a median split. Results FFMQ observing, FFMQ describing, FACIT-SP meaning/peace, and DI moderated the group-by-time effects on anxiety during biopsy ( p ’s