Journal of

Test anxiety, as a psychological and educational challenge, imposes a considerable burden on adolescent students. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of an adolescent-centered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program on alexithymia and test anxiety symptoms in adolescents. The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a two-month follow-up with a control group. The statistical population consisted of adolescent students studying in two schools in Tehran during the 2025 academic year. From among them, 30 students were selected using convenience sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the adolescent-centered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program in eight weekly sessions, whereas the control group received no intervention during the study period. Data were collected using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Test Anxiety Questionnaire and were analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance. The statistical results indicated that the adolescent-centered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program led to a significant reduction in alexithymia and test anxiety symptoms among students in the experimental group compared with those in the control group. Furthermore, the follow-up results demonstrated the stability and persistence of the effects of this psychological intervention at the two-month follow-up assessment. In conclusion, the adolescent-centered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program can be considered an effective and sustainable intervention for reducing alexithymia and test anxiety symptoms in adolescents, and its application as a complementary intervention in educational settings is recommended.