(PS3-67) Associations Between Perceived Stress, Mindfulness, and Mental Well-being Among School-aged Youth Prior to the Completion of an Outdoor, Mindfulness-based Intervention

Abstract Text: Schools serve as a key point of intervention in connecting underserved and marginalized youth to mental health resources. School-based interventions increase students’ awareness and access to tools that they may utilize during stressful situations. One such intervention, Reset Outdoors, integrates mindfulness-based education and contact with nature to better equip students with positive coping and distress tolerance skills. To better understand the impact of students’ baseline stress levels on their pre-implementation engagement in mindfulness and mental well-being scores, we conducted linear regressions. Quantitative surveys were completed by students located within a vocational-technical high school (N = 152) in September 2024 in an urban setting in Pennsylvania. Students on average were 15.6 years old and identified as racially and ethnically diverse (55.3% White; 47% Hispanic or Latine; 22.7% Black or African American; 20% Other; 1.3% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; .7% American Indian or Alaska Native). Students completed measures such as the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10), Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM), and Warwick Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS). We utilized SPSS Version 29 to assess the association between high-school students’ pre-implementation perceived stress on their engagement in mindfulness practices and mental well-being scores. We found that perceived stress was inversely related to mindfulness (B = -6.30, p = .01) suggesting that higher perceived stress was associated with less engagement in mindfulness. Likewise, we found that higher perceived stress scores were associated with lower positive well-being scores (B = -1.13, p = .01). These findings suggest that higher perceived stress is related to lower engagement in mindfulness and mental well-being scores. High school students may benefit from participating in an outdoor, mindfulness-based intervention to target and decrease their perceived stress levels and improve their ability to cope with adverse life experiences.