Currently accepted at: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 2, 2026
Date Accepted: Jun 10, 2026
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/90730
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Digital Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Psychiatric Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mindfulness has been defined as the ability to observe thoughts, bodily sensations, and emotions in the present moment with openness and acceptance. Decades of research have shown that MBI’s are efficacious across many conditions. There are a variety of factors that may preclude individuals from accessing in-person MBIs, and digital MBIs offer a viable solution to difficulties accessing care. Internet-based treatments have the potential to increase accessibility, thus reaching a wider audience and reducing barriers to access.
Objective:
The emergence of digital mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) represents a significant advancement in the accessibility of treatments for psychiatric disorders. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the effects of digital MBIs on reducing symptoms in psychiatric disorders.
Methods:
A comprehensive systematic search was conducted encompassing studies published up to July 2024. The R package metafor was then used to conduct multilevel mixed effects models to estimate between-group effect sizes and moderator effects.
Results:
A total of 135 between-group effect sizes were reported in twenty-one studies with 20 independent study samples. Meta-analysis findings indicate a small-to-moderate between-group effect of digital MBIs on psychological outcomes as compared to control interventions (d = 0.36). Between-group effects of MBIs were smaller in studies that used active controls compared to studies that used treatment as usual controls. Type of digital MBI was also a significant moderator such that MBCT had significantly larger effects on outcomes compared to other digital MBIs (p = .05) and MBSR (p = .05). Study design was also a significant moderator (p = .004), such that effects of MBIs were smaller in studies with quasi-experimental designs compared to studies with a randomized controlled trial design.
Conclusions:
Overall, digital MBIs are transdiagnositcally efficacious compared to passive controls and have similar efficacy to active controls. Future research should prioritize examining effects on disorders where no RCTs have yet evaluated digital MBIs, including eating disorders, personality disorders, and bipolar disorder. Additionally, the field would benefit from more rigorous RCTs with larger sample sizes.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.