The Effect of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Mood and Anxiety Symptoms, Interpersonal Relationships, and Emotions: An Initial Randomized Controlled Trial With a Non-Clinical Sample of Undergraduate Women

Luis Flores

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depression and Anxiety Symptoms

Treatments: Behavioral: Visualization; Behavioral: Loving-Kindness Meditation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07611253

rf#1025416

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial was to examine the effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) on anhedonic depressivity, interpersonal relationships (other inclusive self-concept, willingness to sacrifice, interaction quality) and emotions (positive affect, negative affect).

The second aim was to conduct exploratory analyses investigating potential mediators that help explain changes in anhedonic depressivity over the course of short-term targeted LKM.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive one week of ~5-minute daily audio recordings of Loving-Kindness Meditation or a visualization meditation, both of which were focused on a same-gender close friend. Participants completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires measuring psychological, social, and emotional variables; participants also completed daily questionnaires.

Full description

Undergraduate women were recruited via the Queen's University psychology department's subject pool (n = 222) and online advertisements (i.e., Facebook; n = 18) in 2021; written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to any data collection.

We randomly assigned participants-via Microsoft Excel random number generation-to engage in one-week of either a targeted form of Loving-Kindness Meditation or a visualization meditation. Participants identified a specific close friend at the beginning of the study to be the target of their meditation practice. They completed baseline and one-week follow-up measures.

Audio instructions for the LKM and visualization meditation conditions were developed for this study based on those used by Seppala et al. (2014). Recordings were delivered via email. Descriptions of the conditions can be found in the Arms and Interventions sections.

Enrollment: 240 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must be enrolled as an undergraduate student
• Each Participant had to self-identify as a woman.
• Participants had to be age 18 or older.
• Participants had to have at least one close female platonic friend.

Exclusion criteria

• Participants did not complete at least three of seven daily meditations.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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240 participants in 2 patient groups

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomly assigned (via Microsoft Excel) to receive the Loving-Kindness Meditation intervention.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Loving-Kindness Meditation

Visualization Meditation

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants randomly assigned (via Microsoft Excel) to receive the Visualization Meditation active comparator condition.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Visualization