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. 2004 Jul;19(7):760-5.
doi: 10.1111/j.1525-1497.2004.30011.x.

Prospective study of new participants in a community-based mind-body training program

Sung W Lee  1 , Carol A Mancuso, Mary E Charlson
Affiliations

Prospective study of new participants in a community-based mind-body training program

Sung W Lee et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2004 Jul.

Abstract

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.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flow of participant recruitment and data collection.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean baseline and follow-up scores for domains of the SF-36 general health questionnaire (n = 171). All changes significant at P < .0001.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean within-subject improvements in depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and self-efficacy after 3 months of mind-body training (n = 114). Changes are expressed as a percentage change of scale range. All changes significant at P < .0001. *Lower scores indicate better status.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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