A MEDITATION PROGRAM IN HIGH-BURDEN INFORMAL CAREGIVERS

Consuelo Lourdes Díaz Rodríguez

Status: Completed

Conditions: Caregivers Burnout

Treatments: Other: Scientific descriptions about meditation.; Other: Meditation.

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04570826

Interventional (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of the present study was to investigate in high burden caregivers the effects of a face-to-face meditation program during four weeks (16 hours) on physiological parameters, psychological state and vagal nerve activity comparing with a control group.

Full description

A non-randomized repeated-measures controlled clinical trial was conducted with convenience allocation of participants into intervention (n = 18) or control group (n = 17). Due to ethical reasons, it was not possible to randomize the patients.

The investigators invited from different associations in Granada city and its province through word and mouth or by telephone to 45 volunteer informal caregivers. 40 of them enrolled in this study but only 37 finalized the program, 24.3% male and 75.7% female with a mean (SD) age of 44.03 (7.30) years. The people that have previous experience in mind body practices or cardiovascular diseases were excluded. All the caregivers received information about the study and informed consent was obtained from all participants. This study was approved by the CEI-GR (C-9) ethics committee and followed the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Convenience sampling was used to assign caregivers to the control or experimental groups.

Enrollment: 45 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• People who care for a dependent family member or close relative and live with him/her in the same home for at least two years with a caregiver burden of more than 55 points in Zarit Burden Scale.

Exclusion criteria

• People that have previous experience in mind body practices or cardiovascular diseases.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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45 participants in 2 patient groups

Meditation program

Experimental group

Description:

The experimental group participated in the Meditation program during one month, eight sessions with a total of sixteen hours.

Treatment:

Other: Meditation.

Scientific descriptions about meditation

Active Comparator group

Description:

The control group received scientific descriptions about meditation.

Treatment:

Other: Scientific descriptions about meditation.