Relationship of perceived stress with cognitive flexibility and life satisfaction and mindfulness-based cognitive intervention in new recruits

To explore the relationship of cognitive flexibility with perceived stress and life satisfaction in new recruits, construct a mindfulness-based cognitive intervention program, and investigate the impact of this program on cognitive flexibility and life satisfaction in the participants.

Cluster sampling was applied to select new recruits from a unit, and 965 participants were surveyed with questionnaires. The assessment instruments included Chinese Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS), Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI), and Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among them, 61 new recruits were divided into a training group (n=31) and a control group (n=30). The training group received a mindfulness-based cognitive intervention for 6 weeks, and the control group only received mental health education every week. The training efficacy were evaluated with questionnaires and behavioral experiment (cued task-switching paradigm).

① Perceived stress was significantly negatively correlated with cognitive flexibility and life satisfaction (r=-0.78, P < 0.01; r=-0.64, P < 0.01), and cognitive flexibility and life satisfaction were positively correlated (r=0.59, P < 0.01); ② The mediating effect was observed in cognitive flexibility between recruits' perceived stress affecting life satisfaction, with a mediating effect size of -0.12, accounting for 29.27% of the total effect; ③ After intervention, there were significant differences between the 2 groups of new recruits in terms of cognitive flexibility, life satisfaction, accuracy and reaction time in the cued task-switching paradigm, with those of the training group obviously better than those of the control group (P < 0.05). The training group obtained notably improvements in above scores after intervention (P < 0.05), but no such changes were observed in the control group.

Mindfulness-based cognitive intervention can effectively improve cognitive flexibility and life satisfaction for new recruits.