Intervention feasibility study focused on acts of kindness induces a decrease in anxiety, depression, and stress in youths

Abstract

Interventions based on positive psychology are an effective alternative to reduce symptoms of emotional distress and prevent mental health problems. However, little is known about the evaluation of kindness on unpleasant emotional states. The objective is to evaluate the feasibility of an intervention focused on acts of kindness on anxiety, depression and stress in university students. Three men and two women participated in an intervention of three weekly sessions, and pre- post evaluation. A multi-element single-case design was carried out with five replicates where the effect size was calculated using the percentage of non-overlapping data and the reliable change index. In the results, the post-intervention evaluation showed a significant change index for depression, anxiety and stress. However, the size of the effect was questionable. From the results, we can affirm that the feasibility study offers data in favor of the component of acts of kindness as an intervention on negative affect. However, it is recommended to evaluate the effect size with larger samples and more robust statistical indices.