The Work Engagement and Wellbeing Study (SWELL)

Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mindfulness; Exercise

Treatments: Behavioral: Be Mindful; Behavioral: Light exercise course

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04631302

2020.Vainre_Swell

Details and patient eligibility

About

Mindfulness and exercise are both widely used to improve mental health and well-being. Some people find that these activities also improve their ability to focus. This study aims to find out whether mindfulness and light exercise could be similarly effective in improving mental wellbeing and engagement at work. The study further investigates the cognitive processes (e.g., memory and attention skills) that might improve as a result of mindfulness and exercise.

Full description

Mental illness is a major cause of disability worldwide[1]. Much of the adult population is employed and spends 28% of their waking hours doing paid work[2,3]. The occupational environment is therefore an opportune location for preventative mental health interventions. A growing number of employers provide programmes to improve well-being and work performance.

Mindfulness is typically defined as "the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment". Practising such awareness has been linked to reduction in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress in community populations. There is also evidence that mindfulness could improve life satisfaction, overall well-being, and quality of life.

It has also been argued that mindfulness may yield workplace benefits beyond well-being. Mindfulness has been suggested to improve work performance, reduce the negative effects of multitasking, and enhance self-regulation of thoughts, emotions and behaviours. Empirical evidence to support these suggestions, however, is scarce. Furthermore, the mechanisms through which mindfulness impacts work performance are not clear. Understanding mechanisms of change (a) would help to design better, more targeted interventions, (b) would improve our attempts to assess MBPs via selection of more stringent control interventions and (c) may promote a personalised medicine approach by informing understanding of what works for whom and in which context.

Current literature suggests that MBPs could improve work performance through increased mental well-being and/or cognitive control over emotional material. A definitive randomised controlled trial is needed to evaluate these potential mechanisms. However, methodological uncertainties need clarification to inform the design of such a trial. We aim to conduct a feasibility trial to clarify these uncertainties and complete a preliminary investigation of the relationships between mindfulness training, workplace performance and the proposed mechanisms of action: mental well-being and cognitive control.

This feasibility trial will:

1. Estimate the between-groups effect size for the effect of mindfulness, relative to a light exercise control condition, on our primary outcome of work performance, in order to inform power calculation for a larger trial;
2. Explore whether improved cognitive control and/or enhanced mental health could be potential mechanisms underlying the effect of mindfulness on work performance;
3. Determine procedural feasibility of a later stage trial by evaluating the willingness of the participants to be randomised and other practical implications of running a randomised controlled trial;

Enrollment: 241 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Employee at one of the participating organisations
• Based in the UK

Exclusion criteria

• Is currently on a long-term leave
• Is currently suffering from severe periods of anxiety, depression or hypomania/mania;
• Is experiencing other severe mental illnesses;
• Has had a recent bereavement or major loss;
• Has already completed a mindfulness course or have meditated more than 10 hours in the past 10 years.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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241 participants in 2 patient groups

Mindfulness

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Be Mindful

Light Physical Exercise

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Light exercise course