Death recollection moderates stress-influenced depression in Thai boarding school students.

BACKGROUND

Death recollection is a form of mindfulness meditation that orients a practitioner's calm attention toward an awareness of death. This meditation is practiced by Theravada Buddhists of all ages throughout Thailand. This research investigates how recollecting death influences Thai teenager mental health.

METHODS

Purposive and convenience sampling methods were used to recruit participants from five boarding schools in northern Thailand. Students aged 15-18 were invited to participate, and they completed the questionnaires Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Outcome Inventory: Depression Subscale (OI: Depression), and Inner Strength Based Inventory: Meditation (iSBI: Meditation). Moderation analysis was conducted with SPSS ver. 27 and PROCESS ver. 4.2.

RESULTS

The sample comprised 440 students (88.2% female) with a mean age of 16.34 ± 0.96. This population had moderate stress (24.08 ± 5.04), low depression (3.82 ± 3.39), and an 'often but not every day' average meditation frequency (2.92 ± 1.38). There were 42 students (10.2%) who practiced death recollection in the past month. As hypothesized, death recollection practice moderated the relationship between stress and depression, indicating those who practiced may have had fewer symptoms of depression due to stress. The moderation effect was significant: B = 0.133, standard error = 0.061, 95% CI = .253 to .013 after controlling for the meditation frequency of the population.

CONCLUSIONS

The significant moderation effect suggests that death recollection may negatively influence how stress can contribute to the development of depression symptoms in boarding school students. A longitudinal study is recommended to confirm variable interaction across time for assessing death recollection as a causal influence of stress influenced depressive symptoms. This would clarify whether long-term practice strengthens moderation over time.

HIGHLIGHTS: 1. The recollection of death is observed even among adolescents. 2. Recollection of death is discovered to mitigate depression resulting from stress. 3. Recollection of death is recommended after calming oneself with concentration meditation.