Impact of Brief Meditation on Breathlessness Patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The effects of brief mindfulness meditation on hospital patients with breathlessness problems.
IRAS ID
177169
Contact name
Nora Vyas
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Kingston University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 1 months, 27 days
Research summary
Hospital wards can be a stressful and unnatural environment, which can cause some patients to be anxious. The proposed study wants to investigate if brief mindfulness meditation (MM) can help improve the psychological and physiological wellbeing of patients with breathlessness problems on a respiratory ward. Mindfulness has most commonly been defined as the state of being attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present in a non-judgmental and accepting way. Breathlessness is a common somatic accompaniment of anxiety (Bass & Gardner, 1985). In a non-clinical population, research has shown that brief MM can reduce anxiety, increase mindfulness and cognitive function after four sessions when compared to a control group (Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David, & Goolkasian, 2010) It has also been shown to reduce heart rate when compared to a sham MM and control groups (Zeidan, Johnson, Gordon, & Goolkasian, 2009). Previous research has also shown that brief meditation can have a positive effect on the well-being of hospital patients (Olivo, Dodson-Lavelle, Wren, Fang, & Oz, 2009; Ramachandra, Booth, Pieters, Vrotsou, & Huppert, 2009). The study will investigate if brief MM can bring about a reduction in anxiety and an improvement in mindfulness and cognitive skills. It is also predicated that this change will positively effect a patient’s breathlessness score and also reduce blood pressure when compared to a control group. Many of the patients on the ward have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD has been shown to cause a general decline in many cognitive functions. Attention in COPD patients has been studied thoroughly compared to others cognitive aspects (Andreou, Vlachos, & Makanikas, 2014). Impairments on vigilance and sustained visual attention have been shown by several studies (Borak etal. 1996; Kozora et al. 2002; Kozora and Make 2000). An improvement in cognitive skills through MM can hopefully benefit those with COPD.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
15/WA/0204
Date of REC Opinion
25 Jun 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion