Breathing Techniques and Meditation for Health Care Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: COVID-19 Infection

Treatments: Other: Questionnaire Administration; Other: Media Intervention; Procedure: Yoga; Other: Quality-of-Life Assessment; Procedure: Meditation Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04482647

NCI-2020-04931 (Registry Identifier)

2020-0483 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This phase I trial investigates breathing techniques and meditation for health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic. Breathing techniques and medication may help manage stress and improve lung health. The goal of this trial is to learn if breathing techniques and meditation may help to reduce stress and improve lung health in health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Full description

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:

I. To demonstrate the feasibility of a short pranayama or breathing techniques and meditation during Covid-19 pandemic.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To determine the adherence to the practice assessed as at least 50% of participants implement the intervention for 3 or more times in a week by the end of week 1/day 7 (+ 3 days).

II. To determine the change in resilience, perceived stress and psychological impact from day 0 today 28 as measured by the Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS4), and COVID-19 Stress among health care workers questionnaire.

III. To determine the changes in breath holding time measured weekly for 4 weeks.

IV. To determine the differences in breath holding time between those who are adherent and those who are not adherent to the practice.

OUTLINE:

Patients view an instructional video on breathing techniques and meditation. Patients then perform breathing techniques over 3 minutes and meditation over 2 minutes twice daily (BID) for 28 days.

Enrollment: 100 patients

Sex: All

Ages: Under 70 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must be able to read and understand English
• Must be employed at MD Anderson Cancer Center

Exclusion criteria

• Epilepsy
• Brain tumor
• Brain aneurysm
• Pregnant or trying to get pregnant
• Brain bleeding in the past 1 year
• Recent abdominal surgery and not cleared to exercise

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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100 participants in 1 patient group

Supportive Care (video, breathing techniques, meditation)

Experimental group

Description:

Patients view an instructional video on breathing techniques and meditation. Patients then perform breathing techniques over 3 minutes and meditation over 2 minutes BID for 28 days.

Treatment:

Procedure: Meditation Therapy

Other: Quality-of-Life Assessment

Procedure: Yoga

Other: Media Intervention

Other: Questionnaire Administration