Mindfulness and Relapse Prevention among New Mothers during Recovery for Opioid Misuse

The opioid epidemic is a growing problem in the US and continues to affect various populations, including new mothers. We examined the effect of attendance to Mindfulness-Based Parenting (MBP) on risk of relapse and determined the influence of psychosocial factors – such as Adverse Childhood Events (ACE), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Parental Stress Index (PSI), and Five Facet Mindfulness scores – on risk of relapse. We abstracted urine drug screens to capture relapse among participants (N = 78) who enrolled in MBP and self-selected controls from their first cohort enrollment to six months after their last MBP session/cohort participation, and then analyzed the data using bivariate Chi-squared tests and bivariate logistic regressions. Lastly, we created multivariate binary logistic regression models to predict risk of relapse with number of sessions attended and repeating the course while controlling for demographic and psychosocial measures. We found that 48.5% of MBP participants and 33.3% of controls had at least one incident of relapse of any substance within six months post-MBP/last cohort. In our multivariate models evaluating risk of relapse, lower post-MBP total PSI scores were significantly associated with a decreased risk of any substance use by 6.7% and opioid use by 8.4%. Repeating the MBP curriculum was significantly associated with a decreased risk of relapse of any substance by 97.3%. Our models also showed that higher ACE scores were associated with an increased risk of relapse of other substance use and any substance use by 52.7% and 80.4%, respectively. This study provides evidence that MBP is associated with reducing the risk of relapse and highlighted the interaction of factors that can influence relapse among new mothers undergoing treatment for opioid use disorder