Mindfulness Training for Small Teams

The purpose of this study is to look at how mindfulness training may influence how the participant thinks, feels, and acts.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cognitive Change
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: MBAT-T; Behavioral: MBAT-I

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 356
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Florida
    • Coral Gables, Florida, United States, 33146
      • University of Miami

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who are between 18 and 65 years of age
• Individuals who are fluent English speakers
• Individuals who are active-duty service members
• Men and women of all races and ethnicities

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who have a medical or neurological condition that might interfere with performance on the task in the study (e.g., epilepsy)
• Individuals with a history of hospitalization for psychological/mental health issues within the last 6 months.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mindfulness-Based Attention Training for Teams (MBAT-T); Teams randomized to this group will receive 4, 2-2.5-hour sessions delivered over 4 weeks of mindfulness training and 15 minutes of daily, out-of-class mindfulness exercises, that will be delivered and tracked using a measuring mindfulness application.	Behavioral: MBAT-T; The MBAT-Team program builds on the basic 4-week, 8-hour MBAT-Soldier program. In addition to the basic program, MBAT-Team includes exercises promoting the cultivation of attention and emotion regulation in the service of effective team interactions (e.g., mindful communication and listening; monitoring and attention to the activities and emotional states of others, and additional practices to promote collective mindfulness).
Active Comparator: Mindfulness-Based Attention Training for Individuals (MBAT-I); Individuals randomized to this group will receive 4, 2-2.5-hour sessions delivered over 4 weeks of mindfulness training and 15 minutes of daily, out-of-class mindfulness exercises, that will be delivered and tracked using a measuring mindfulness application.	Behavioral: MBAT-I; The MBAT-Individual program is based on the basic 4-week, 8-hour MBAT-Soldier curriculum.
No Intervention: No-training; Teams will not engage in any mindfulness training

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Attentional Performance	Attentional Performance as measured by the Sustained Attention Response Task (SART).This task uses a continuous performance paradigm involving button presses to frequently presented non-targets (numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) but requires the participants to withhold their motor response to the infrequent target (number 3). Withholding responses only to infrequent targets encourages a pre-potent response and mind wandering. Real-time subjective experience of mind wandering during SART is assessed through experience-sampling probes randomly presented throughout the task.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Working Memory Performance	Working Memory Performance as measured by the Working memory task with Affective Distracters. In this task, participants are presented with a memory array that they are to encode and hold in memory during a delay interval. During the delay, emotionally negative or neutral scene images are presented.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Cohesion	Cohesion as measured by 3 items adapted from a questionnaire developed by Podsakoff and MacKenzie. Scale items are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), according to how much participants agree with each item.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Team Situation Monitoring	Team Situation Monitoring is measured by 7-item subscale of the Teamwork Perception Questionnaire, which assesses individuals' shared perceptions of group-level team skills and behavior. The scale consists of a list of items that are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree), according to how much participants agree with each item.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Workgroup Emotional Intelligence	Workgroup Emotional Intelligence as measured by the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile, which is a 16-item measure of emotional intelligence abilities that manifest as behaviors in work teams. The scale consists of a list of items that are rated on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree), according to how much participants agree with each item. This measure reflects an individual's judgment of their ability to monitor and manage their own emotions and the emotions of the members of their squad.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Team Mindfulness	Team Mindfulness as measured by the Team Mindfulness Scale, which is a 10-item scale measuring the individual's experience of their team interactions as mindful. The total score ranges from 1 to 5, with a higher score indicating an individual's perception of the team's attitudes and experiences as marked by greater mindfulness.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Mindfulness	Mindfulness as measured by the short version of the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, which is a 15-item scale. The total score ranges from 15 to 75, with a higher score indicating greater levels of mindfulness in different aspects of one's life.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Decentering	Decentering as measured by the decentering sub-scale of the Experience Questionnaire, which is an 11-item scale measuring various thoughts and experiences, and the tendency to distance from those. The total score ranges from 1 to 55, with a higher score indicating higher levels of decentering.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Psychological Health	Psychological health as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire, which is a 4-item scale measuring depression and anxiety. The total score ranges from 0 to 12, with higher scores indicating a higher level of depression and anxiety.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Positive Affect	Positive affect as measured by the short version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-10), a 5-item scale measuring the frequency of experiences of positive affect. The total score ranges from 5 to 25, with a higher score indicating a higher positive mood.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Negative Affect	Negative affect as measured by the short version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-10), a 5-item scale measuring the frequency of experiences of negative affect. The total score ranges from 5 to 25, with a higher score indicating a higher negative mood.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Perceived Stress	Perceived Stress as measured by the short version of the Perceived Stress Scale, which is a 4-item scale measuring the degree to which situations in one's life are viewed as stressful. The total score ranges from 0 to 16, with a higher score indicating higher levels of perceived stress.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Accuracy on Cognitive and Marksmanship Drills	Marksmanship will be measured with drills involving synthetic rifles to interact with stimuli in an augmented reality environment. Accuracy in the drills will be scored from 0% to 100%, with a higher score indicating better performance.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)
Change in Reaction Time on Cognitive and Marksmanship Drills	Marksmanship will be measured with drills involving synthetic rifles to interact with stimuli in an augmented reality environment. Reaction time will be measured in milliseconds, with lower values indicating faster responses.	Baseline (testing session 1) to week 5 (testing session 2)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Miami
• Collaborators: United States Department of Defense
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Amishi P Jha, PhD, University of Miami

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 10, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 7, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): April 12, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 20, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 20, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): December 24, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 1, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 29, 2022
• Last Verified: August 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: psychological well-being; attentional performance; operational performance
• Other Study ID Numbers: 20191047; W81XWH1920064 (Other Grant/Funding Number: Department of Defense)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

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