- ICH GCP
- US Clinical Trials Registry
- Clinical Trial NCT01853098
A Pilot Study of Positive Affect Training
Effect of a Novel Mindfulness Based Loving Kindness Meditation on Positive and Negative Affect
Study Overview
Status
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
Detailed Description
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and mindfulness meditation, in which PAT is rooted, are derived from Buddhist practices that have been empirically shown to have applications in improving mental health. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, mindfulness based CBT was shown to decrease stress, negative affect, and chronic pain in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric subjects. Mindfulness-based therapy has since been shown to be effective for treating mood and anxiety disorders. Only recently has LKM been examined as an intervention for affective symptoms. This meditation practice seems to be particularly suited for reducing negative affect while also enhancing positive affect in individuals who show emotional dysregulation, such as people with dysthymic disorder. This notion is supported by experimental studies suggesting that LKM decreases anxiety and stress, positively influences emotional responses to neutral stimuli, and promotes positive emotions such as trust, love, hope, and compassion. Dr. Fredrickson, a prominent researcher and social psychologist who is the foremost expert in LKM will serve as an outside consultant for the development of the protocol. She is not listed as an official collaborator because she will not be in direct contact with the participant data that the investigators will collect.
The intervention the investigators plan to develop, Positive Affect Training (PAT), combines mindfulness and LKM, with a strong emphasis on the latter. The investigators will adopt strategies that have been described in a previous LKM protocol for trauma victims. The investigators contacted Dr. Kearney who shared his manual with us. Given the impressive effect LKM seems to have on generating positive, and attenuating negative affect in experimental studies, the investigators plan to test PAT as a method of improving positive affect. The current study aims to test the initial efficacy of PAT in individuals who report experiencing a low mood. The investigators hypothesize significant improvement in subjects' self-reported ratings of negative and positive affect as a result of the intervention.
Study Type
Enrollment (Actual)
Phase
- Not Applicable
Contacts and Locations
Study Locations
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Massachusetts
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Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
- Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University
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Participation Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Ages Eligible for Study
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Genders Eligible for Study
Description
Inclusion Criteria:
- Must be at least 18 years of age
- Responds positively to the question on the recruitment material (flyer and posting): "Have you been feeling depressed or in a low mood for most of the day, more days than not, nearly every day for 1 year or longer?"
- Must have a negative affect scale score of the PANAS of at least 21.6 (1 SD above the mean of normative sample)
Exclusion Criteria:
- Participants with a BDI score of 30 or higher (more than moderate depression) will be excluded.
- Participants who are at risk of harming themselves will be excluded from participating in the study. Suicidality will be assessed after obtaining consent during the screening visit. In addition, the Beck Depression Inventory will be examined for self-reported suidicality. If a participant is found to have suicidal ideation, the PI will be contacted immediately and appropriate follow-up care will be provided by referring the participant to the ER.
- Participants will be assessed through a phone screen using questions from the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS) for disorders that could impose a safety risk for the participants or others (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc). Subjects who endorse "yes" responses to phone screen items will be excluded.
- Participants who are receiving any psychiatric or psychological treatment for a mood or anxiety disorder at the time of the assessment will be excluded from the study. Participants who initiate such treatments while being enrolled in the study will be closely monitored. These participants will be allowed to remain in the study, but will later be excluded from the data analyses. They are allowed to remain in the study for ethical reasons and because the present trial is a proof-of-concept study and not a clinical trial.
Study Plan
How is the study designed?
Design Details
- Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
- Allocation: NA
- Interventional Model: SINGLE_GROUP
- Masking: NONE
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / Arm |
Intervention / Treatment |
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Experimental: Positive Affect Training (PAT)
The intervention will be conducted in groups with 6-8 participants and 2 facilitators/therapists per group.
The groups will meet once a week for 12 successive weeks and each session will be approximately 60 minutes long.
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During the PAT sessions, the participants will be taught the basics of mindfulness and how to concentrate their thoughts and feelings on the present moment in a non-judgmental fashion.
As the therapy sessions continue, participants will be introduced to basic loving-kindness meditation (LKM).
They will be taught to identify and focus the positive feelings they have when they are around someone or something they care about, and transfer these feelings first to themselves, then to a close friend, to a neutral individual, to people whom they dislike, and finally to all living beings.
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What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Time Frame |
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Change from Baseline in Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS)
Time Frame: 12 weeks
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12 weeks
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Secondary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Time Frame |
---|---|
Change from Baseline in Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)
Time Frame: 12 weeks
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12 weeks
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Change from Baseline in Beck Anxiety and Depression Scale (BDI)
Time Frame: 12 weeks
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12 weeks
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Change from Baseline in Compassionate Love Scale
Time Frame: 12 weeks
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12 weeks
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Collaborators and Investigators
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Stefan G. Hofmann, Ph.D., Boston University, Psychology Department
Publications and helpful links
General Publications
- Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988 Jun;54(6):1063-70. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.54.6.1063.
- Fredrickson BL, Cohn MA, Coffey KA, Pek J, Finkel SM. Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 Nov;95(5):1045-1062. doi: 10.1037/a0013262.
- Hofmann SG, Grossman P, Hinton DE. Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions. Clin Psychol Rev. 2011 Nov;31(7):1126-32. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003. Epub 2011 Jul 26.
- Carson JW, Keefe FJ, Lynch TR, Carson KM, Goli V, Fras AM, Thorp SR. Loving-kindness meditation for chronic low back pain: results from a pilot trial. J Holist Nurs. 2005 Sep;23(3):287-304. doi: 10.1177/0898010105277651.
- Hofmann SG, Sawyer AT, Witt AA, Oh D. The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2010 Apr;78(2):169-83. doi: 10.1037/a0018555.
- Hofmann SG, Sawyer AT, Fang A, Asnaani A. Emotion dysregulation model of mood and anxiety disorders. Depress Anxiety. 2012 May;29(5):409-16. doi: 10.1002/da.21888. Epub 2012 Mar 16.
- Hutcherson CA, Seppala EM, Gross JJ. Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion. 2008 Oct;8(5):720-4. doi: 10.1037/a0013237.
Study record dates
Study Major Dates
Study Start
Primary Completion (Actual)
Study Completion (Actual)
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
First Posted (Estimate)
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (Actual)
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
Last Verified
More Information
Terms related to this study
Other Study ID Numbers
- 3151
This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.
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