Incorporating Mindfulness Intervention into Health Related Educational Intervention: Does it help?

Abstract

Educational- and decision aids (ED-DA) have been developed to assist patients with their health related decisions but these interventions do not address patients´ distress. As distress can affect learning processes it is important to incorporate intervention into ED-DA that reduces distress. Mindfulness meditation (MM) has been found to reduce distress. The aim of the present study was therefore, to explore the impact of MM in affecting retention of medical information and examine the potential mediation role of distress and the moderating role of trait-mindfulness. Participants (N= 41) were randomly assigned to a MM group (N = 26) or CG (N = 15). Both groups received information about skin cancer and following that, they completed a questionnaire assessing their retention of the information. Results revealed that participants in the MM group retained significantly more of the health related information than the CG (p < .05). However, the intervention did not decrease distress and, therefore, the impact of the intervention on retention could not have been mediated by distress. Participants high on trait mindfulness did not have higher retention of the information than participants low on trait mindfulness. The results suggest that incorporating MM into existing ED-DA intervention might improve their effectiveness in assisting individuals with making an informed decision regarding their health and/or treatment decisions.