Student Stress Levels and Management Through Meditation

Stress, Psychological Clinical Trial

Official title:

Physical Therapist Doctoral Student Stress Levels and Management Through Meditation

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02821611
• Other study ID #: 1314-136-b
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: January 2015
• Est. completion date: April 2016

Study information

• Verified date: February 2019
• Source: California State University, Northridge
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The professional program in Physical Therapy is rigorous and demanding on students, resulting in high levels of fatigue, stress, and sleep disturbance that can impact student performance and wellbeing. This project seeks to investigate ways to reduce student stress, monitor their quality of sleep and possibly enhance their learning through the practice of meditation.

Description:

Utilizing a randomized controlled study design, a cohort of doctoral students in their first year of physical therapist education will undergo an 8 week intervention of a mantra-based Meditation (twice daily 20 minutes) with pre and post measures of blood pressure, sleep hygiene via the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and stress surveys, including Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Visual Analogue Scale for stress (VAS), as well as daily logs of sleep to assess sleep quality.

As many as 32 students (total number in cohort) per year may participate with 1/2 serving as controls and 1/2 undergoing the meditation practice for 8 weeks.

Baseline measurement details:

QUESTIONNAIRES: Each participant will be given a 1-item Visual Analogue Scale for stress (VAS), a 10 item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and a 9 item Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire. The VAS simply asks subjects to score how much stress they are feeling at that one moment in time on a 0-100 scale. The PSQI scores and assesses sleep quality and disturbances over a 1-month time interval and will be administered at the 4 week mark 1/2 way into the study as well as at pre and post intervention data collection events.

BLOOD PRESSURE: Blood pressure will be measured individually in a separate room to ensure confidentiality. The BP measurements will be administered using an Omron professional automatic blood pressure monitor (model number HEM 907X) to ensure comfort/safety and the accuracy of the reading. Also for accuracy of blood pressure measurements subjects will be asked to refrain from caffeine (coffee, tea or chocolate), cigarettes/nicotine, or exercise that morning until after measurements are taken and avoid alcohol the evening prior. One identified researcher will take all blood pressure reading and will be blinded to which subjects are part of the research or the control groups.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 46
• Est. completion date: April 2016
• Est. primary completion date: April 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 22 Years to 45 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Graduate student in the first year of the Doctorate of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at California State University, Northridge (CSUN)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Taking blood pressure or sleep medication; or already currently practicing a daily meditation.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Stress, Psychological

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Meditation Group
twice daily 20 minute mantra-based meditation practice for 8 weeks

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	California State University, Northridge	Northridge	California

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
California State University, Northridge

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Change in Blood Pressure	Omron HEM 907XL professional automatic blood pressure monitor used at baseline and at 8 weeks post intervention	8 weeks
Primary	Change in Perceived Stress Survey Questionnaire	10-Item standardized survey tool for perceived stress level	At baseline and at 8 weeks post intervention
Primary	Change in Sleep Hygiene utilizing PSQI survey	PSQI sleep survey administered 3 times during the study (baseline, 4 weeks and 8 weeks)	survey at baseline, 1 month and at conclusion of 8 weeks