Mindfulness Training in U.S. Army Cohorts

University of Miami

Status: Completed

Conditions: Cognitive Change; Psychological Stress; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Depression; Anxiety

Treatments: Behavioral: 2-week MBAT; Behavioral: 4-week MBAT

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03310112

20170243

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project aims to contextualize delivery of mindfulness training to U.S. Army personnel, evaluate its effectiveness on measures of executive functions and psychological well-being, and determine best practices for its delivery.

Full description

Background: An individual's success in the U.S. Army relies on many factors including the integrity of executive functions (EFs). EFs comprise a complex, multi-faceted brain system necessary to pay attention, overcome habitual and automatic behaviors, regulate mood, and ensure that current behavior is in line with short and long-term goals.Yet, protracted periods of high uncertainty, high demands, and high stress can lead to decreases in the efficiency and availability of EFs. Given the high demands and psychological vulnerabilities that U.S. Army personnel may face, it is critical to provide them with training programs to protect against degradation of EFs (particularly attention and working memory) over high-stress, high-demand intervals. Prior research on mindfulness training (MT) in civilians and military servicemembers showed that MT can effectively protect against degradation in attention and working memory and benefit psychological well-being over high-demand intervals.

Problem: While being successful, prior MT programs required a considerable amount of time dedicated to training (e.g., 24-hour training) and it is challenging to integrate these long programs into the busy schedule of the U.S. Army personnel. To accommodate the time constraints, the principal investigator together with a mindfulness expert developed a short-form mindfulness training program contextualized for the U.S. Army; the program consists of 8-hour training and is known as MBAT, Mindfulness-Based Attention Training.

Project Goal: The present study aims to investigate the best practices for delivery of a short-form mindfulness training to U.S. Army Cohorts. Specifically, the present study will examine the best delivery structure for the MBAT by comparing MBAT course delivered in 2 weeks vs. 4 weeks.

Enrollment: 120 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• English-speaking
• U.S. Army personnel
• Able to understand and provide signed informed consent

Exclusion Criteria

• Non-controlled sever medical disease that might interfere with the performance in the study
• Any other condition that the investigator might deem problematic for the inclusion of the volunteer in a training study of this nature

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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120 participants in 3 patient groups

4-week MBAT

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will engage in Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) in 4, 2-hour training classes over 4 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: 4-week MBAT

2-week MBAT

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will engage in Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) in 4, 2-hour training classes over 2 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: 2-week MBAT

No training control (NTC)

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will receive no intervention but will be tested before and after a no-training interval.