Mindfulness for Medical Students

Burnout is common among medical students. Previous studies had shown that mindfulness based interventions may improve burnout and quality of life in medical students. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is one of the most often used mindfulness based interventions.

Medical students in the Chinese University of Hong Kong are invited to a MBCT on voluntary basis. They will be asked to fill in questionnaire that measures burnout, depression/anxiety, quality of life, and mindfulness at beginning and end of the MBCT. The pre-group and post-group data will be compared and analysed

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Burnout, Professional; Mindfulness
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT)

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 24
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong, Hong Kong
    • Lek Yuen Clinic

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Medical students studying in Chinese University of Hong Kong

Exclusion Criteria:

• The investigators did not set any exclusion criteria

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Other: MBCT group; There is only 1 arm in the study. The MBCT will be conducted according to the treatment manual. The program consists of eight weekly sessions. In between sessions, participants are advised to practice mindfulness meditations for 40-50 minutes every day. The teachers of the program will teach on voluntary basis. The teachers must have attended the 1-year foundation course to teach mindfulness (available in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong), regular mindfulness practice and must have at least yearly mindfulness retreat. This is in accordance to the good practice guidelines developed in the UK for mindfulness teachers

Behavioral: mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT); a well described and structured intervention, which is published previously. The psychoeducation materials in the MBCT will be titrated to discuss about low mood and burnout

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)	The validated Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is a 22-item questionnaire that assesses three aspects of professional burnout syndrome which includes emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. It is widely used in research and has been widely used in studies about medical student well-being. In the scale, burnout is conceptualized as a continuous construct and participant is asked to rate their job related feelings using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from "never" to "everyday". A high degree of burnout is defined as a respondent who scores low on the Personal Accomplishment subscale but high in the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales of the instrument	8 weeks (before and after MBCT; after 8 weekly sessions)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21)	The 21-item DASS-21 questionnaire will be used to assess the presence of depression, anxiety and tension/stress with 7 items per subscale. Each item is ranked from 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much, or most of the time). The total score is computed by adding scores of each item and multiplying them by a factor of 2. Therefore, the total possible score ranges from 0 to 126. The questionnaire exhibits adequate validity and internal consistency among clinical and non-clinical samples	8 weeks (before and after MBCT; after 8 weekly sessions)
the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF)	The WHOQOL-BREF consisted of 26 items representing four underlying domains: environment, psychological, social relationship and physical health. Scores within each domain can be transformed to a scale of 0-100, with higher scores represent better quality of life. The scales was used in medical students' burnout research	8 weeks (before and after MBCT; after 8 weekly sessions)
Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)	The FFMQ consisted of 39 items representing five underlying constructs: observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experience and non-reactivity to inner experience. Each item is rated from 1 ("never or very rarely true) to 5 ("very often or always true"). Total Score can be obtained by summation of scores.The higher score represents a more mindful attitude in daily life.	8 weeks (before and after MBCT; after 8 weekly sessions)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Chinese University of Hong Kong

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 7, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 26, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): January 28, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 31, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 2, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): August 3, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 4, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 31, 2019
• Last Verified: January 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Stress, Psychological; Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Burnout, Professional
• Other Study ID Numbers: CUHK-mind

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED
• IPD Plan Description: Data will be made available on request from other researchers

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No