Minority and low-income couples tend to experience greater individual and relational stress compared to higher income and/or White couples, which is likely due to the unique challenges these populations face. Given that previous studies indicate mindfulness reduces both individual and relationship stress, it may be a particularly useful tool for these underserved populations. Unfortunately, low-income and minority populations experience greater barriers to engaging in typical approaches to therapy (e.g. transportation, child-care, etc.). Furthermore, many mindfulness interventions occur over an 8 to 12-week period making attrition even greater for this population. In response to these barriers, briefer, home-based, interventions have been found to be a successful solution to reaching and retaining these populations. Thus, the proposed study seeks to design a brief home-based mindfulness intervention to deliver to a pilot sample of low-income couples. Using a randomized wait-list control, we plan to recruit 60 low-income couples from local healthcare facilities that serve low-income individuals. Despite group assignment, all couples will complete a baseline questionnaire assessing individual and dyadic functioning, as well as engage in a 10-minute discussion about a relationship issue. This discussion will be video recorded for later observational coding purposes. Couples in the experimental group will take part in the brief mindfulness intervention after the baseline measures are complete. Data collection and delivery of the intervention will take place in the participants’ homes. Couples will be asked to complete follow-up assessments at 1- and 6-months post-intervention. The waitlist control group will begin their intervention at the experimental group’s 1-month follow-up using the same procedure as employed for the experimental group. We will examine change in individual and dyadic functioning compared to the waitlist control and at 1- and 6-month follow-ups.
