When experiences are not judged as positive or negative, good or bad, one would be able to simply notice and accept the experiences as they are while letting go of the struggle to control that which is uncontrollable (eg. The practice of mindfulness leads to distress reduction through several mechanisms: (1) the interruption of automatic negative thoughts through intentional awareness,(2) the reduction of worry and rumination through focusing on the present moment, and (3) the reduction of negative appraisals through non-judgmental awareness. Often defined as the intentional and non-judgmental awareness of the present-moment experience, mindfulness may be especially helpful in dealing with uncertainty underlying the distress from cancer diagnoses. Consequently, the NCCN recommends that patients be routinely screened for distress, regarding it as the “6th vital sign” in cancer. Heightened psychological distress in patients with cancer is often associated with negative outcomes such as lesser treatment adherence, higher mortality risk, and poorer quality of life for both patients as well as their caregivers. Psychological distress is a broad construct, encompassing common emotions such as sadness, vulnerability, and fear as well as more debilitating issues such as clinical depression and intense anxiety. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network defines cancer-related distress as a “multifactorial unpleasant emotional experience of a psychological (cognitive, behavioural, emotional), social and/or spiritual nature that may interfere with the ability to cope effectively with cancer, its physical symptoms, and its treatment”. Due in part to intense treatments, heavy economic burden as well as comorbidities, chronic diseases including and especially cancer bring with them an additional increased risk of poor mental health. In 2018 alone, there were 18.1 million predicted new cancer cases and 9.6 million cancer-related deaths. IntroductionĬancer is one of the most common chronic diseases globally, with its incidence and mortality rapidly growing. Our hypothesis was not supported.Ĭonclusion: Although not significantly greater than the control group, the intervention group reported a reduction in distress using the smartphone application, which suggests that the integration of mindfulness and smartphone applications could potentially play a role in future distress reduction for patients and caregivers in view of its accessibility, ease of administration and anonymity. Results: While both groups reported a reduction in distress in using the application, there was no significant difference in reported distress levels between those who had access to the mindful breathing module and those who had access to only soothing music over the seven days. They then used and followed instructions as per the smartphone-based application for seven days. Methods: 35 subjects were recruited from the palliative care ward at University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and randomly assigned to either the control (access to soothing music) or intervention (access to mindful breathing module) group respectively. We hypothesized that the intervention group (access to mindful breathing module) would have significantly greater distress regulation than the control group (access to soothing music) over seven days of using the smartphone-based application. Objective: We aim to further examine the efficacy of our mindful breathing module on distress reduction within the context of a smartphone-based application for palliative cancer patients and caregivers over a seven day period. As palliative cancer patients tend to experience high levels of distress, the integration of this technique into a smartphone-based application could be a viable intervention option for these patients as well as their caregivers. Background: We have found our 5-minute mindful breathing technique to be effective in reducing distress in palliative cancer patients.
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