Mindfulness Meditation vs. Physical Exercise as Internal Recovery Strategies: Study on Comparative Effects on Stress, Fatigue, Burnout, Sleep Quality and Immunocompetence. A Randomized Controlled Trial
Overview
- Phase
- Not Applicable
- Intervention
- Not specified
- Conditions
- Stress
- Sponsor
- Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
- Enrollment
- 72
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire of Levenstein
- Status
- Completed
- Last Updated
- 7 years ago
Overview
Brief Summary
The objective of this research project is to examine if including mindfulness meditation or physical exercise at lunch break improve workers' recovery from work stress. Therefore, 72 workers included either mindfulness meditation or physical exercise during their lunchbreaks for a month in order to find out if these recovery strategies have more favorable outcomes than usually spent lunch breaks concerning: a) psychological detachment, b) perceived stress, c) general health, d) burnout, e) fatigue, f) quality of sleep, g) cortisol awakening response and h) immunocompetence.
Detailed Description
The investigators conduct an intervention study in a sample of 72 knowledge-workers, who engaged in mindfulness meditation or physical activities for five weeks. They performed from 15 to 30 minutes during their lunch breaks. The investigators randomly assigned participants to three experimental conditions: 1) mindfulness meditation, 2) physical activity, 3) control group (lunch break as usual). Online questionnaires before and after intervention assessed long term changes regarding recovery processes, perceived stress, health, mindfulness and burnout. For daily changes, a mobile application was developed to assess changes once per day immediately after work. The investigators also collect saliva samples to map cortisol and immunoglobulin A excretion across the intervention period. The investigators had two follow-up measures one and six months after the intervention.
Investigators
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria
- •Knowledge-workers of an specific company with similar stress level.
Exclusion Criteria
- •Serious illness
- •Regular meditation
- •Regular physical exercise
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire of Levenstein
Time Frame: 8 months
Validation of the Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire of Levenstein et al. (1993). It is a scale to measure stress in psychosomatic disorders. It consists of 30 items, with Likert responses from 1(almost never) to 4 (almost always). The Spanish version has 6 factors: Harrassment-social acceptance, Overload, Irritability-tension-fatigue, Energy-Joy, Fear-anxiety, Self-realization-satisfaction. The higher score, the higher perceived stress.
Recovery Experience Questionnaire (Sonnentag et al., 2007)
Time Frame: 8 months
Recovery Experience Questionnaire (Sonnentag et al. 2007) is a measure for assessing recuperation from work. It has 16 items divided into four subscales: psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery and control. Each subscale has 4 items. Every items has a 5-point scale from 1 (I do not agree al all) to 5 (I fully agree). Higher scores indicates a higher degree of recovery from work stress.
Spanish version of the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg et al., 1997)
Time Frame: 8 months
Short version of General Health questionnaire. It has 12 items divided into three subscales: Stress, Coping strategies and Self-steem. Every item has a Likert scale to answer from 0 to 3. Higher scores indicates worse general health.
Salivary Immunoglobulin A
Time Frame: 1 months
Level changes from Baseline to 1 month follow-up. Samples were collected in Salivettes -trademark- (a plastic tube with a swab) twice a day: in the morning (round 7am) and after work (round 7pm). There were collected two Salivettes every of the three moment of measuring (pretest, postest and 1 month follow-up). That means there were taken 6 tubes for every participant.