Sharing Student Projects

University students are at high risk for developing psychological difficulties as they are facing challenging situations such as adapting to new environments, academic pressures, financial difficulties, and making new friends (Arslan & Asıcı, 2022). This can negatively impact on their wellbeing, academic performance and the risk of university dropout (Campbell et al., 2022). Therefore, research that helps understand mechanisms that can support student mental wellbeing is vital. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness is associated with emotion regulation and psychological wellbeing, suggesting it could serve as an effective intervention to improve university students’ wellbeing. Hence, this research aimed to examine the relationships between mindfulness, emotion regulation difficulties and psychological wellbeing, and to explore whether mindfulness was associated with psychological wellbeing through emotion regulation difficulties. The target population for this study was UK university students aged 18 and above, due to increasing psychological problems among this population (Campbell et al., 2022). The participants included 141 university students aged between 18 to 38 years old, recruited via University of Manchester volunteering website, researcher's personal network, snowball sampling and on-campus outreach. This study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional and correlational design. Data were collected via an online survey hosted on Qualtrics. Participants completed three self-report questionnaires, including a short version of Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI-14), Psychological Wellbeing Scale (PWB-18) and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-18), alongside demographic questions such as age, gender, level of study (undergraduate or postgraduate) and student status (international or local). Once participants read the participant information sheet, confirmed they were aged 18 years and above and provided informed consent electronically, they were directed to the questionnaire section. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were conducted to examine the association between the variables. A mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes’ s PROCESS macro to examine whether emotion regulation difficulties mediate the relationship between mindfulness and psychological wellbeing. The results revealed that emotion regulation difficulties fully mediated this relationship. The direct effect of mindfulness on psychological wellbeing was no longer statistically significant after controlling for emotion regulation difficulties. This suggests that students with higher mindfulness tend to experience lower emotion regulation difficulties, which in turn leads to higher psychological wellbeing. These findings align with existing literature showing that mindfulness is associated with lower emotion regulation difficulties (Cheung & Ng, 2019; MacDonald, 2021), and that lower emotion regulation difficulties are associated with higher psychological wellbeing (Oliveira et al., 2024; Zhoc et al., 2022). However, limited research examined the mediating effect of emotion regulation difficulties between mindfulness and psychological wellbeing. This study addresses this gap by showing that mindfulness improves psychological wellbeing through reducing emotion regulation difficulties, highlighting the key mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties. These findings suggest that mindfulness-based interventions that combined with efforts to improve emotion regulation skills could be particularly effective in supporting university students’ psychological wellbeing

This research showed that higher mindfulness among UK university students is associated with lower emotion regulation difficulties, which in turn leads to higher psychological wellbeing. Mediation analysis highlights the key mediating role of emotion regulation in explaining the association between mindfulness and psychological wellbeing. These findings could benefit a variety of stakeholders, including students, universities, mental health professionals and student support services. University students may face many challenging situations that can adversely impact their wellbeing. This research supports the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in improving university students’ emotion regulation abilities, leading to higher psychological wellbeing. University students who often experience academic stress and personal pressures may find mindfulness particularly useful. They could practice mindful techniques to improve their emotion regulation skills, and helping them cope with stress, manage their mood, and support their psychological resilience. Universities and student support services may adopt mindfulness-based interventions to support students with emotion regulation difficulties or declining psychological wellbeing. These interventions could consist of a series of short online sessions, in-person workshops, or integration into course modules, catering to a wider range of students with varying levels of mindfulness experience. By offering these interventions, universities can support students’ wellbeing during periods of high academic stress, especially around exam periods, which helps prevent more serious mental health issues and reduces demand on counselling services. Mental health professionals could also design interventions that target on improving emotion regulation skills through mindfulness in both individual and group counselling sessions, enabling students to gain a better understanding of their emotions and manage them more effectively.