Open AccessProspective Study of New Participants in a Community‐based Mind‐body Training Program
Author(s) -
Lee Sung W.,
Mancuso Carol A.,
Charlson Mary E.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of general internal medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.746
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 1525-1497
pISSN - 0884-8734
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1497.2004.30011.x
Subject(s) - medicine , mental health , vitality , quality of life (healthcare) , prospective cohort study , sf 36 , physical therapy , gerontology , psychiatry , health related quality of life , disease , philosophy , theology , nursing , surgery , pathology
BACKGROUND: Mind‐body practices such as yoga are widely popular, but little is known about how such exercises impact health‐related quality of life. OBJECTIVE: To measure changes in health‐related quality of life associated with 3 months of mind‐body training as practiced in community‐based settings. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: Eight centers for practice of mind‐body training. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred ninety‐four English‐speaking adults who had taken no more than 10 classes at the centers prior to enrollment in the study. One hundred seventy‐one (88%) returned the 3‐month follow‐up questionnaire. INTERVENTION: Administration of the SF‐36 questionnaire at the start of training and after 3 months. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: At baseline, new participants in mind‐body training reported lower scores than U.S. norms for 7 of 8 domains of the SF‐36: mental health, role emotional, social, vitality, general health, body pain, and role physical ( P < .002 for all comparisons). After 3 months of training, within‐patient change scores improved in all domains ( P < .0001), including a change of +15.5 (standard deviation ±21) in the mental health domain. In hierarchical regression analysis, younger age ( P = .0003), baseline level of depressive symptoms ( P = .01), and reporting a history of hypertension ( P = .0054) were independent predictors of greater improvement in the SF‐36 mental health score. Five participants (2.9%) reported a musculoskeletal injury. CONCLUSIONS: New participants in a community‐based mind‐body training program reported poor health‐related quality of life at baseline and moderate improvements after 3 months of practice. Randomized trials are needed to determine whether benefits may be generalizable to physician‐referred populations.