The Effect of Online Mindful Sitting Meditation on the Perceived Stress Levels of Medical Students in Sampaloc, Manila
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Medical students face much perceived stress with regard to their academics, which can be very overwhelming. This perceived stress can harm their mental health, cognitive function and learning ability. Mindfulness-Based Meditation Stress Reduction (MBSR) teaches individuals to observe situations and thoughts in a nonjudgmental, nonreactive and accepting manner. With growing evidence of mindfulness meditation on reducing perceived stress levels, the researchers wanted to determine if MBSR, specifically mindful sitting meditation, would serve as a useful method to reduce perceived stress levels of medical students, specifically in Sampaloc, Manila. This study utilized a quasi-experimental research design using simple random sampling. The target population included first-year to fourth-year medical students from Manila, and the study was conducted using an online mindful sitting meditation lasting for 20 minutes a day for the experimental group while the control group was being observed simultaneously in a separate online room. Perceived stress levels were obtained from both the control and experimental groups before and after the intervention, and this collection of data persisted for a duration of five days. Afterwards, data was analyzed using the ANOVA and Wilcoxon signed-ranked tests, and the results showed that there was significant immediate improvement of stress levels after each mindful sitting meditation session (p = 0.006) with a slow but significant improvement in stress levels in a span of five days (p = 0.0493). This shows that mindful sitting meditation may be a useful tool for medical students to use to cope with their stress. Keywords: Mindfulness, mindful sitting meditation, meditation, stress, perceived stress, medical students
Institution: University of Santo Tomas
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7223673035