Research in brief Editor: Gary Winship Submissions address: Sheffield University, Manvers Campus, Wath Upon Dearne, S63 7ER, UK A qualitative study into the experience of individuals involved in a mindfulness group within an acute inpatient mental health unit Introduction Mindfulness based therapeutic interventions in mental health services are increasingly proving to show high levels of efficacy. Mindfulness involves intentionally developing an awareness of moment- to-moment experience through meditation exer- cises, reflecting upon the findings and gaining insight into the cognitive, emotional and physical internal processes which underlie our experience of the world. A mindfulness group within acute inpatient mental health services in the Plymouth Teaching Primary Care Trust was established in March 2005 as part of an increased psychotherapeutic response within service delivery. Recent acute inpatient care guidance (Department of Health 2002) established the provision of therapeutic experiences for people whilst in hospital as a major area for develop- ment. The National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE 2003) report that many service users have extremely negative experiences of hospi- tal, finding the hospital environment stressful rather than therapeutic. The Department of Health (2002) found that high therapeutic intervention environ- ments diminish disturbance, violence and boredom, and enhance recovery. It is further suggested that each inpatient service needs to have a clear focus on the timetabled accommodation of therapeutic activ- ity for service users, the implementation of effective ward groups being of great value. Background Day & Horton-Deutsch (2004) argue that finding effective interventions for the treatment of mental illness is a major concern. Increasingly, innovative psychotherapeutic forms of treatment are being used with individuals experiencing serious mental illness (Segal et al. 2002). The use of mindfulness techniques originates from over two millennia ago in the meditation traditions of Asia and has been increasingly developed as a tool in the West over recent years. Mindfulness has found its way into physical and mental health settings over the last two decades. Mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions have been shown to relieve distress for a wide range of psychiatric conditions and there is a growing evidence base to substantiate this. Ma & Teasdale (2004) found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduced the incidence of relapse from 78% to 36% in patients with three or more previous episodes of depression. Individuals suffering from subjectively distressing psychosis have also been shown to benefit from the use of mindfulness tech- niques (Chadwick et al. 2005). A study of 35 com- munity mental health team clients with a range of psychiatric diagnoses that had used mindfulness- based therapy found significant reductions in global distress, anxiety and depression, and improvements in well-being (Soulsby & Williams 2004). A quali- tative study of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy involving mental health service users found that mindfulness skills were seen to play a key role in the development of change (Mason & Hargreaves 2001). The use of mindfulness within acute inpatient mental health is still very much in its infancy. This study aimed to explore the experiences of indivi- duals involved in the mindfulness group within Plymouth acute inpatient mental health services in order to evaluate its efficacy within this setting. The mindfulness group The group met on a weekly basis, consisting of two facilitators and an average of five participants who were inpatients of the unit. The sessions lasted for Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 2007, 14, 603–608 © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 603