Pilot of mindfulness therapy for inpatients with gastrointestinal pain

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Exploratory study of mindfulness for inpatients with chronic gastrointestinal pain: does it reduce pain related distress and increase confidence in pain self-management?

  • IRAS ID

    145220

  • Contact name

    Amanda C de C Williams

  • Contact email

    amanda.williams@ucl.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University College London

  • Research summary

    Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations and is used a therapeutic technique. It is a recommended therapy in the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guideline for depression in adults. This study aims to investigate the effect that mindfulness has on the distress that chronic pain causes for people when they are in hospital. Published studies have shown that mindfulness groups can helps reduce pain (Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth & Burney, 1985; Baer, 2003; Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt & Walach, 2004; Reiner, Tibi & Lipsitz, 2013), pain distress (Chiesa & Serretti, 2011) and improve abdominal symptoms (Gaylord et al, 2011) and quality of life (Kearner, McDermott, Martinez & Simpson, 2011) for people with chronic pain in the community, but it has not been tried with people in hospital. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of minimal therapist contact mindfulness (guided self-help using a book and audio recordings) on pain-related distress.

  • REC name

    London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    14/LO/0683

  • Date of REC Opinion

    1 Jul 2014

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion