Background: Students of clinical psychology and medicine experience high levels of mental distress and low levels of life satisfaction. Using adaptive coping strategies can modify the negative effect of stressors on health. Mindfulness, it has been claimed, more adaptive coping with stress, yet few studies have investigated whether mindfulness training influences the use of coping strategies in non-clinical populations. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on the use of engagement and disengagement coping strategies in a student population, here measured by problem-focused coping, avoidance-focused coping, and the seeking of social support. We also explored whether personality (neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion) moderated the effects of the mindfulness intervention on coping. Method: The design was a two-centre randomized controlled trial with pre- and post-intervention data collection. The main effects of this trial with regard to mental distress, study stress, burnout, subjective well-being, and mindfulness have been reported earlier. This paper represents additional analyses of main and moderated effects of the intervention on a new set of coping variables. Two hundred and eighty-eight students of psychology and medicine were randomized to receive either a 7-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme or the continued standard study curriculum. Results: Students receiving mindfulness training increased their use of problem-focused coping, as compared to the control group. In addition, students with high scores on neuroticism benefitted from the intervention in terms of reduced avoidance-focused coping and an increase in seeking social support, compared to the control group. Conclusion: Mindfulness training may help to improve adaptive coping in students, but some of these effects may be limited to students with high emotional reactivity.