The Effect of a Single Session of 30-Minute Mindful Breathing on Fatigue among Patients with Hematological Cancer – A Randomised Controlled Trial.

Patients with haematological cancer attending the haematological clinic or admitted to the haematological ward of University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were screened for eligibility, then subsequently randomised into intervention and control groups. Patients allocated to the intervention group received standard care plus a single session (one-off) of guided 30-minute mindful breathing at their location of recruitment (clinic / ward). The mindful breathing session consisted of four breathing exercises done consecutively. The four exercises included identifying the in-and out-breath, following the entire length of the breath, bringing the mind back to the body and relaxing the whole body. Each exercise lasted for 7.5 minutes, therefore the total duration of the intervention was 30-minutes. The guidance was done by research assistants who are also medical doctors, face-to-face with individual patients. The research assistants were trained by one of the co-investigators who is a palliative care physician certified in mindfulness training. The training included a 15-minute brief introduction to the basic concepts of mindfulness, followed by a 30-minute mindful breathing session guided by the trainer. Guidance on delivering the intervention with attention to paralanguage (intonation, rate and rhythm of speech, pitch, articulation, use of silence, etc.) and body language (eye contact, facial expression, posture and bodily movement), followed by supervision of the actual delivering of the 30-minute mindful breathing session by each research assistant were performed.