The Potential for Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Workplace Mental Health Promotion

The Potential for Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Workplace Mental Health Promotion: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

The aims of the study are to determine the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Interventionas a workplace health promotion program on psychological distress, prolonged fatigue, job strain (job control and job demand), and perceived stress and to explore the influences of personal characteristics (including gender, age, education, and occupation) on the outcomes of the intervention with time.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: mindulness-based intervention

Detailed Description

This study was one component of the Taiwan Workplace Mental Health Promotion Scheme. The study adopted a study design of a randomized controlled trial. Two large-scale manufacturing factories were chosen for this study. All of the factories' 3270 full-time employees were requested to fill in a questionnaire comprising questions regarding mental health and job strain. Of these employees, 2849 individuals were willing to complete the questionnaire. A total of 431 employees (15.13%) were found to be in psychological distress with job strain. The screening procedure was carried out between June and July in 2011. A letter of invitation with an introduction to MBI was sent to these employees. Of these 431 employees, only 144 responded that they would be willing to take part voluntarily in the study. These 144 workers were allocated randomly into the intervention group (Group I, n=72) or the waiting-list control group (Group C, n=72).

All the participants were measured five times with an interval of four weeks between measurements. These measurements were taken at pre-intervention (T1), at mid-intervention (T2), at the completion of intervention (T3), four weeks after intervention (T4), and eight weeks after intervention (T5). The data related with the effectiveness of the intervention were obtained between August and December in 2011.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 144
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Taiwan
  • Taichung, Taiwan, 402
    • Chung Shan Medical University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Healthy employees with psychological distress and job strain
• Full-time paid workers

Exclusion Criteria:

• Age < 18y or > 65y
• Part-time workers
• The workers are not willing to take part in the study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: mindulness-based intervention; Mindulness-based intervention was eight weeks of mindfulness training with forty-five minutes of homework practice every day during the training course. A leader and a professional facilitator led the group. The leader was a long-term mindfulness and vipassana meditation trainer who had practiced both types of meditation for more than two decades and had completed mindfulness trainer education; the professional facilitator was a mindfulness practitioner and a psychiatrist. The group met weekly for two hours in-session at the workplace.	Behavioral: mindulness-based intervention; A number of mindfulness techniques, including both "formal" and "informal" practices with integration in the context of Mind/Body meditation, were explored in order to cultivate moment-by-moment present awareness with non-judgmental acceptance.
No Intervention: waiting-list control; passive control group

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
psychological distress	Psychological distress was measured by the Chinese Health Questionnaire (CHQ-12), a well-validated instrument	four months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
prolonged fatigue	Prolonged fatigue was measured by The Checklist Individual Strength questionnaire (CIS), which confirmed discriminant validity and convergent validity.	Four months
job strain	The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) was used to assess job control and job demands (job strain).	four months
perceived stress	The 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was adopted to measure a global level of perceived stress.	four months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Chung Shan Medical University
• Collaborators: Changhua Christian Hospital
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Feng-Cheng Tang, MD; PhD, Changhua Christian Hospital

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Huang SL, Li RH, Huang FY, Tang FC. The Potential for Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Workplace Mental Health Promotion: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS One. 2015 Sep 14;10(9):e0138089. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138089. eCollection 2015.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2011
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2011

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 7, 2014
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 12, 2014
• First Posted (Estimate): September 16, 2014

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): September 16, 2014
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 12, 2014
• Last Verified: September 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: mindfulness meditation; worker; mental health promotion
• Other Study ID Numbers: CCH 110606