Chronic Illness, Mental Health Impairment
Conditions
Keywords
mindfulness meditation, Adolescent, eHealth, randomized trial
Brief summary
This study will seek to compare the effect of a mindfulness meditation program for adolescents with chronic illness delivered either in person or via an online platform. The 8-week program will combine meditation practices, breathing exercises and group discussions. Participants will be recruited from different general and specialized clinics at the Hospital for Sick Children and will be allocated to either an in-person or the online group through a random process (like tossing a coin). The study will aim to recruit 60 participants ages 13-18. Each participant will provide data through research questionnaires, recorded interviews and saliva samples.
Detailed description
The study will be conducted as a longitudinal randomized controlled trial comparing in-person and eHealth delivery of a mindfulness meditation intervention for adolescents with chronic illness. There will be two arms. An experimental and a feasibility arm. In the experimental arm, 4 groups of 10-15 participants will be formed: two in-person groups (early and late) and two eHealth groups (early and late). The early groups will receive the intervention at the beginning of the study period and the late groups will be wait-list controlled group that will receive the intervention at the middle of the study period. At the end of the recruitment period or when the target number of participants is met (60), whichever comes first, all teens meeting the inclusion criteria will be randomly allocated to one of the four randomized groups. Teens who are not meeting the final inclusion criteria (able to attend mindfulness sessions at Sickkids) will be offered a spot in the feasibility arm of the study until the maximum total number of study participants is reached (60). These participants will be placed in eHealth groups (either early or late) through a separate randomization process. Data collection will take place at baseline (during the intake meeting), immediately before and following the mindfulness intervention as well as at the end of the 6-month study period. Participants in the experimental arm will provide data through research questionnaires, salivary cortisol analysis as well as individual semi-structured interviews with a research assistant. Salivary samples will be provided from home for participants in the eHealth groups. Participants in the feasibility arm will only provide information through research questionnaires.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALMARS-A
The intervention will consist of the 8-week mindfulness meditation program designed for adolescents with chronic health conditions.MARS-A is based on two established mindfulness-based interventions for adults: MBSR and MBCT. The content of the program will be the same for in-person and e-health groups: all participants will receive eight 90-minute weekly evening sessions led by two trained and experienced mindfulness providers. Sessions will include short meditation practices, breathing exercises, guided discussion, mindful movements and inquiry, adapted to the context of chronic illness. Every session will start with a brief review of home practice and will close with a discussion of the home practice for the following week.
Sponsors
Mind and Life Institute, Hadley, Massachusetts
University of Toronto
The Hospital for Sick Children
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
SEQUENTIAL
Primary purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
SINGLE (Investigator)
Masking description
This study will be a single-blinded study (investigators only). Participants will be coded using Arabic numerals. A research assistant will receive all questionnaires and cortisol samples. Mindfulness facilitators will be unaware of participant identification numbers. Participants will be assigned to one of four groups (experimental arm) or to one of two groups (feasibility arm) following a computer-generated randomization list (permuted block design, using blocks of two or four). The allocation sequence will be generated by a statistician not otherwise involved in the project and passed on to a research assistant after patient identification data has been collected (ensuring that the investigators are kept blind to the allocation of each participant). Allocation sequence will be password-protected and only accessible by the statistician and research assistant.
Intervention model description
The study will be conducted as a longitudinal randomized non-inferiority trial comparing two arms: an experimental arm and feasibility arm. Participants living close enough to commit to in-person sessions will be entered in the experimental arm of the study. The feasibility arm, which will only take place if the targeted number of study participants (60) is not reached for the experimental arm, will be offered to participants who are not able to commit to the in-person mode of delivery. It will consist of two groups, one early e-health group and one wait-list e-Health group. At the end of the recruitment period, once participants have been placed in the experimental and feasibility arms, two separate randomizations will take place. The first randomization (experimental arm) will serve to assign participants to one of the four experimental groups and the second randomization (feasibility arm) will assign participants to one of the two feasibility groups.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
13 Years to 18 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Diagnosis of chronic illness * Fluent in English * Followed by a care provider at the Hospital for SickKids * Able to consent to the study * Able to attend in-person mindfulness meditation sessions at Sickkids (for the experimental arm only)
Exclusion criteria
* Active and unaddressed suicidal ideation * Developmental disability preventing participation in the mindfulness program
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness Skills Acquisition | Up to 6 months | Acquisition of mindfulness skills as measured by the MAAS-A questionnaire a 14-item Likert-type scale that has been validated in adolescents. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Esteem | Up to 6 months | Self-esteem scores as measured by the Rosemberg Self-Esteem Scale a validated Likert-type scale that has been validated in adolescents. |
| Salivary cortisol levels | Up to 6 months | Salivary cortisol levels measured at 8am, 12pm, pre and post meditation at weeks 1 and 8 of the intervention. Sampled by Salivette devices (cotton swabs) and analyzed by enzyme immune-assay |
| Anxiety and depression score | Up to 6 months | Anxiety and depression scores as measured by the DASS-21 questionnaire, a Likert-type scale that has been validated in adolescents |
| Mindfulness home-practice | Up to 6 months | Compilation of personal mindfulness meditation practice through self-reported log books filled at the beginning of each session of the 8-week mindfulness meditation program. |
| Appreciation of the mindfulness intervention | Up to 6 months | Semi-structured interviews conducted by research assistant with participants having completed the 8-week mindfulness meditation program. Interviews will compare appreciation between in-person and e-Health groups |
| Perception of Illness | Up to 6 months | Perception of illness score (coping with chronic health condition) as measured by the Perceptions of Illness questionnaires a validated Likert-type scale. |
Outcome results
None listed