Effect of HeartMath Intervention on Stress, Emotional Vitality and Sense of Coherence

August 24, 2026 updated by: Shimmaa Elsayed, Damanhour University

Resilience as a Journey, Not a Destination: The Feasibility of Applying HeartMath to Stress, Emotional Vitality and Sense of Coherence Among Intensive Care Units Nurses.

This study aims to investigate the effect of Heart math intervention program on stress, emotional vitality and sense of coherence among intensive care units Nurses

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This study aims to investigate the effect of Heart math intervention program on stress, emotional vitality and sense of coherence among intensive care units Nurses.

The intervention was implemented in form of 2 sessions per week according to the following 7 sessions, each session about 45- 60 minutes.

Session (1)

Aims:

Introduce Heart Math definition of stress. Assess client's current stress level.

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1 : Stress What is stress? How stress affect health? How stressed are you? What can I do about it? Session (2) Aim: Introduce concept of heart coherence

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Heart Coherence How dose Heart Math work? How can I create and practice physiological coherence? The Quick Coherence Technique. Handout 2: Depletion to renewal plan. Session (3)

Aims:

Teach Heart-Focused Breathing and Quick Coherence Introduce personal practice plan to use for

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Heart-focused breathing. Handout 2: Quick coherence technique. Handout 3: Personal practice log. Session (4)

Aims:

Assess client's current anxiety level. Review this week's homework on Personal Practice Log. Review and practice Quick Coherence Technique. Teach Heart Lock-In Technique.

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Anxiety Checklist. Handout 2: Quick Coherence Technique. Handout 3: Heart Lock-In Technique. Handout 3: Personal Practice Log. Session (5)

Aims:

Review this week's homework on Personal Practice Log. Review Heart-Focused Breathing and Quick Coherence Techniques. Review and practice. Heart Lock-In Technique. Teach Freeze Frame Technique.

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Heart Lock-In Technique. Handout 2: Freeze Frame Technique. Session (6)

Aims:

Review this week's homework on Personal Practice Log. Review Heart Lock-In and Freeze Frame Techniques. Teach Attitude Breathing Technique.

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Personal Practice Log. Handout 2: Freeze Frame Technique. Handout 3: Attitude Breathing Technique. Session (7)

Aims:

Review this week's homework on Attitude Breathing Technique. Teach Coherence Communication Technique.

Handouts for patients:

Handout 1: Attitude Breathing Technique. Handout 2: Coherent Communication Technique.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

120

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Egypt
      • Damanhūr, Egypt
        • Damanhour University
    • Damanhour
      • Damanhūr, Damanhour, Egypt, 72027
        • Faculty of nursing

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Nurses who work in selected intensive care units and agree to participate

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Nurses who refuse to participate in this study

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Heart Math group
Nurses will be included in heart math program
Behavioral: Heart Math program
Heart Math program is behavior intervention through several sessions
No Intervention: Control group
Nurses who will receive no intervention

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Resilience Scale
Time Frame: over two months

The Resilience Scale consisted of 25 items and a short version contained 14 items.

The scale is a 7-point Likert type scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree) for each item. Scores on the scale range from 14 to 98. The higher score indicates the ability to respond with resilience and lower score indicates lower resilience.
over two months
Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment
Time Frame: over two months
It is a valid and reliable 52-item survey tool developed by the Heart Math Institute that assesses personal health, resiliency, and workplace factors impacting an organization's quality and effectiveness. It is composed of 4 primary scales (emotional vitality, organizational stress, emotional stress, and physical stress), which are further divided into 9 subscales. These scales assess elements that either enhance or impair work performance, health, well-being, and job satisfaction.
over two months
Sense of Coherence
Time Frame: over two months
The Sense of Coherence scale measure the concept of sense of coherence. The short form of the Sense of Coherence scale consists of 13 items that comprise three components: comprehensibility (to which 5 items contribute), manageability (4 items), and meaningfulness (4 items). The respondents indicate agreement or disagreement on a 7-category semantic differential scale with two anchoring responses tailored to the content of each item. Five items (1, 2, 3, 5, and 7) are reversed before summing the total score. The total score can range from 13 to 91, and a higher score indicates higher coherence .
over two months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Damanhour University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 1, 2025

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 30, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

December 30, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 22, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 22, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

February 27, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 26, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 24, 2026

Last Verified

August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • HeartMath

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

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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