Table 2.
Meta-analyses comparing MBPs to comparators for all cognitive domains and subdomains (both combined and separately)
| Domain | Subdomain | K (N ES) | ES (g) | 95% CI | df | p-value | Tau2 | I2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All domains# | NA | 45 (179) | 0.15 | [0.05, 0.24] | 36 | 0.004 | 0.02 | 20.08 |
| Executive function | All combined | 29 (63) | 0.15 | [0.02, 0.27] | 23 | 0.022 | 0.02 | 18.74 |
| Cognitive flexibility | 10 (19) | 0.08 | [-0.20, 0.35] | 8 | 0.549 | 0.06 | 40.61 | |
| Working memory | 13 (21) | 0.23 | [0.11, 0.36] | 9 | 0.002 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Inhibition | 17 (23) | 0.10 | [-0.06, 0.27] | 14 | 0.205 | 0.02 | 18.54 | |
| Attention | All combined | 22 (52) | 0.12 | [-0.02, 0.26] | 18 | 0.096 | 0.03 | 21.79 |
| Alerting | 22 (46) | 0.08 | [-0.07, 0.24] | 18 | 0.265 | 0.02 | 18.71 | |
| Orienting | 5 (6) | 0.15 | [-0.41, 0.71] | 3* | * | 0.09 | 45.79 | |
| Declarative memory | All combined | 14 (49) | 0.14 | [-0.02, 0.30] | 9 | 0.076 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Episodic memory | 9 (41) | 0.10 | [-0.11, 0.31] | 7 | 0.285 | 0.01 | 11.66 | |
| Short-term memory | 7 (8) | 0.16 | [-0.13, 0.45] | 4 | 0.208 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Cognitive aging | NA | 6 (7) | 0.07 | [-0.22, 0.36] | 4 | 0.530 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Construction | NA | 5 (5) | -0.01 | [-0.25, 0.23] | 3* | * | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Visual perception | NA | 2 (3) | 0.33 | [-2.55, 3.22] | 1* | * | 0.03 | 20.28 |
Effects in bold reached statistical significance (p < 0.05)
MBP Mindfulness-based program, K Number of studies, ES Effect size, g Hedges’ standardized mean difference (positive values imply improvement), CI Confidence interval, df Degrees of freedom, NA Not applicable (no subdomains were specified)
#Excluding the study by Rothschild et al. (2017); *Where df < 4, p-values are unreliable, and are thus not reported here