How Does Mindfulness Meditation Buffer the Negative Effects of Pain and Suffering in the COVID-19 World? (Healthy Sample)

The University of Queensland

Status: Completed

Conditions: Catastrophizing Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Treatments: Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04602312

2019000347-S4C

Details and patient eligibility

About

Both mindfulness meditation and expectancy effects are known to reduce anxiety, stress and catastrophizing, but it is unknown whether and how expectancy effects contribute to the overall effect of mindfulness meditation on these outcomes, especially during significant global events such as the coronavirus pandemic. This study includes four interrelated aims that will probe these effects and interactions.

Enrollment: 744 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• At least 18 years of age
• Able to read and understand English

Exclusion criteria

• Recurrent pain (two or more days in the last month)
• Chronic pain (pain most days in the last three months)
• Incomplete or invalid data (response time < 32 minutes, failing attention checks)
• Completing the 20-minute training module in < 18 minutes or > 90 minutes

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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744 participants in 4 patient groups

Mindfulness meditation

Experimental group

Description:

"focussed attention" mindfulness meditation technique taught as means to reduce coronavirus-related catastrophizing.

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Specific sham mindfulness meditation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

a training session designed to specifically match the real mindfulness training while lacking the proposed active elements of mindfulness training. Delivered as a means to elicit expectancy-mediated (but not mindfulness-mediated) reductions in coronavirus-related catastrophizing.

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

General sham mindfulness meditation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

a training session designed to generally match focussed-attention mindfulness meditation while maintaining greater distance from proposed mindfulness mechanisms. Delivered as a means to elicit expectancy-mediated (but not mindfulness-mediated) reductions in coronavirus-related catastrophizing.

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Book listening control

No Intervention group

Description:

this group completes no meditation training. They listen to a spoken excerpt from the audiobook "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne"