Qigong and Social Isolation: Mental Health Benefits

Universidade do Porto

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1

Treatments: Other: Qigong

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05081297

QgIsolationMentalHealth

Details and patient eligibility

About

The objective of the study is to understand if Qigong may be useful in controlling the psychological state of participants in relative social isolation (during Covid-19 governmental imposed isolation procedures) The sessions are conducted live by the internet by a professional instructor-therapist with the duration of 2 months and a regular minimum of 2 sessions a week.

Full description

The study's objective is to understand if Qigong may be helpful on the psychological state control of the participants in a relative state of isolation imposed by the government on the fight against Covid-19.

Data is gathered via the Mental Health Inventory (MHI) adapted to the Portuguese population to assess quantitative mental health scores and a simple structured interview to assess qualitative mental health benefits of Chikung (Qigong).

Qigong was the chosen technique to be studied as an intervention. Qigong is a Traditional Chinese Medicine therapeutic tool that has been studied for its several health benefits. As a traditional vegetative biofeedback therapy, Qigong can be useful for the maintenance of mental health of people with several conditions such as anxiety and depression, autism spectrum disorder and even conditions related to behavioral control.

• Group 1 was composed of Qigong practitioners (for at least 3 months).
• Group 2 was composed of participants who would receive the Qigong intervention (never practiced Qigong).
• Group 3 was composed of control participants (who would not receive the intervention).

Enrollment: 64 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 16 to 70 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria

• Physical or mental disabilities or conditions that may aggravate when performing semi-supervised physical activity

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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64 participants in 3 patient groups

Qigong practitioner group

Experimental group

Description:

This arm is the experimental group where qigong intervention is going to be applied to practitioners with experience

Treatment:

Other: Qigong

No practice

No Intervention group

Description:

This group has no intervention and acts as control

Beginner Qigong practitioner group

Experimental group

Description:

This arm is the experimental group where qigong intervention is going to be applied to practitioners with no experience.

Treatment:

Other: Qigong