Attachment styles, meditation, religious precepts, and mental health of teenage boarding school students in Northern Thailand: a mediation model

Abstract

Background: Attachment theory has a predictive influence on distress regulation and mental health outcomes, either positive (e.g., resilience) or negative (e.g., depression), and many psychosocial variables mediate those relationships. Thai adolescents within Thailand's predominately Buddhist culture have opportunity to practice meditation and adhere to the five precepts (refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, alcohol and intoxicants). Little is known about the role of meditation and five precepts on the relationship between attachment and mental health outcomes. Objectives: This research aimed to examine how Buddhist meditation and five precepts mediated the relationship between attachment and mental health outcomes amongst Thai adolescent boarding school students, with the hypotheses that Buddhist meditation and precepts would associate with the decreased negative and increased positive outcomes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 453 high-school Thai students (mean age 16.34 ±.95) from five boarding schools in the northern Thai region. Assessments were administered online and by paper at the schools to collect demographic information and measuring attachment using Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) and Experiences of Close Relationships - Revised (ECR-R), meditation with the Inner-Strength Based Inventory (I-SBI), precepts with the Precept Practice Questionnaire (PPQ), and positive and negative mental health outcomes with the Resilience Inventory (RI), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and 21-item Outcome Inventory (OI-21). Parallel mediation analysis was performed on all outcome variables. Results: The distribution of attachment style was 52.8%, 13.2%, 20.8%, and 13.2% for secure, fearful, preoccupied, and dismissing, respectively. ECR-R anxiety and avoidance were 2.80 ± 1.2, and 2.76 ± 1.1, respectively. Meditation was practiced frequently, and precepts were adhered to often. Mediation analysis proved the hypothesis that precepts and meditation do mediate the influence of attachment anxiety and avoidance on mental health outcomes. The explained variance of the outcome from the mediation models ranged from 18% to 35%. Mediation model increased the R2 of linear model from 5.2% to 74.2%, by that resilience was shown to have the largest increase of R2. Male. Buddhist school, Buddhist religion, and family income showed to be the significant covariates. Conclusions: The mediation analysis indicates Buddhist precepts and meditation practices are related to reduced negative mental health outcomes and strengthened positive mental health outcomes. Buddhist five precepts and meditation are available socio-religious practices in Thailand with low-cost psychological benefits. Thai adolescents can benefit from these practices with encouragement from institutions and schools or from within the home. Further study regarding other adolescent populations and longitudinal design is recommended.