The International Journal of Whole Person Care
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The Role of Mindfulness Colouring and Dispositional Mindfulness on University Students’ Test Anxiety and State Mindfulness
Get PDFTest anxiety is a concern among university students. Mindfulness-based colouring activities (mandalas) have been found to be effective for reducing university students’ generalized anxiety and for decreasing test anxiety in youth; however, studies have not used this method to address test anxiety with university students. Given that university students may struggle with higher test anxiety than youth, it is critical to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness colouring for test anxiety in a university setting. This study compared the effectiveness of mindfulness colouring, free draw/colouring, and a non-colouring control activity for university students’ test anxiety. In addition, this study assessed the relationship of dispositional mindfulness and response to intervention on mindfulness and test anxiety states. Participants were 167 university students (81.4% female; Mage=21.29 years, SD=4.46) randomly assigned to a mandala (n=57), free draw/colouring (n=58), or non-colouring condition (n=52). Participants completed standardized measures assessing test anxiety and state mindfulness pre-post-activity before completing a test, and two dispositional mindfulness measures. Results from two repeated measures ANOVAs revealed significant decreases in test anxiety and significant increases in state mindfulness pre-post-intervention for both colouring conditions; however, significant increases in test anxiety were found for the control condition. Furthermore, mediation analyses showed that the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and post-intervention state mindfulness and test anxiety were fully mediated by participants’ pre-intervention state mindfulness and test anxiety. Findings from this research provide practical implications for universities, students, and teachers, as well as future directions for research on mindfulness-based art to support students’ well-being
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Get PDFAs an atheist physician in recovery, I felt marginalized by traditional 12-Step programs. I found a path to sobriety through Refuge Recovery. A full evaluation, including the phyisical, psychosocial, and spiritual, is essential to the care of addicted physicians
Reading Patients: Our Story of Narrative Medicine
Get PDFAs Dr. Rita Charon, pioneer of the field of narrative medicine, said “Literary accounts of illness can teach physicians concrete and powerful lessons about the lives of sick people” but also “enable physicians to recognize the power and implications of what they do” (Charon et al, 1995).Through various narrative medicine exercises, we have explored the benefits of narrative medicine for health care professionals. More specifically, we have created a reading club for medical students and developed a reading module as part of the Physician Apprenticeship Course for medical students at McGill University. Moreover, we led short writing workshops based on prompts from short stories and poems for health care professionals at Anna-Laberge Hospital.During our workshop, we will briefly review our narrative medicine initiatives and then dive into a narrative medicine exercise with the group to demonstrate its potential benefits among health care professionals. We hope that by providing concrete examples of narrative medicine projects we have developed and implemented, we will facilitate the integration of narrative medicine into participants’ own practices.
Reconceptualizing patient engagement within research contexts through a relational approach
No full textCurrently within the Canadian research landscape, inclusion of patients as partners, research ambassadors have become part of the fabric for research funding;"nothing about me without me". My recent personal experiences at pain conferences and from research team meetings as a patient or more precisely, a person living with chronic pain (PLCP), who is also an academic researcher, suggest we need to evolve a philosophy of engagement that serves both the PLCPs as research ambassadors, rather than patent partners. This presentation is intended to open up conversations about the role of patient experience and the interconnections needed to build strong research communities, through a consideration of a whole person care relational model. In order to meaningfully locate and describe the role of the patient within the structure of a scientific research community I turn to Merleau-Ponty who aptly described the two main perspectives from which we research as, “[t]he world and man [human-beings] are accessible through two kinds of investigations, in the first case explanatory [scientific] and in the second case reflective [philosophical]”. Suggesting, that the language and relationships the emerge and nurtured within research communities need a shared understanding derived from a relational approach rather than a business model of efficiency, experts and teams. A relational approach works toward co-creating a sense of belonging and purpose rather than mere inclusion to meet research funding application criteria. The focus of this presentation is to explore how to co-create a relational approach for researchers with people living with chronic pain.
The Gift of Pain with Transformative Possibilities
Get PDFThis personal narrative explores the experiences of pain metaphorically as a gift. The intention of this presentation is to offer alternative ways to reflect on chronic pain, life and taking risks to move from health literacy toward health agency with help. I will describe my approach to decision making using the hermeneutic wager which provides a means to imagine possibilities while mindfully assessing risk. Learning to manage pain and learning to live well with pain through self-empathy and self-compassion as a gift that we are not always aware is within our grasp. This approach was only essential for my own healing process but helped many others who have participated in our community project called HOMEBASE funded by the Movember Foundation to reduce social isolation for men living with chronic pain.
Non Linear Approaches & Interventions using Nonsensical Tools and Humordrama on stage to Elicit Self Acceptance & Humor
Get PDF"The Patient should be instructed not just to accept his fear, but also to laugh at it. This requires courage to be ridiculous" (Viktor Frankl) The workshop will demonstrate non-linear interventions using clownish reduction, paradoxical interventions and nonsense on stage (theater\drama based), to help one in accepting and PLAYING his Narratives based on Weakness, Imperfection, Failure to perform a task, and out of Self-Acceptance to play, maximize and exaggerate his 'weak patterns'. The idea is to elicit Self-Humor in the protagonist without the need to fix oneself but rather having a distance from the situation, till the Fear and Self-Rejection are melting away. To do that we should know how to transcend beyond our Hyper-Critical Mind, Mental Turbulence & Inner Censorship. One should practice how to align with his right hemisphere and intuition. For that, we will use Improvisational tools and skills highlighting Nonsense, Gibberish Exercises and Zen oriented interventions (Humordrama). Viktor Frankl once said "Today I am going to have a stroke"- this was the beginning of Paradoxical Therapy based on Self-Humor and Nonsense, when one is encouraged to maximize and exaggerate his Fears, Imperfections and Shame - to admit them fully till they will pass away. In the workshop we will experiment with Non-Linear Solutions: what will happen if I stop to push gas in neutral sticking to an old way action based on my old belief system which supports my comfort zone, and from now on will adopt a new refreshing, beating, paradoxical, paralogical way of action...facing Uncertainity in the most playfool way (Paradoxical Decisions). 'If sense has not helped us so far it is the time to do something else, to play with Non-Sense
Gender Differences in Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Drinking to Cope in Undergraduates with Problematic Consumption
Get PDFUndergraduate students show the highest rates of problematic alcohol consumption compared to any other non-clinical category of individuals, and coping-motivated drinking has been consistently shown to be the most problematic. The present study examines associations between mindfulness facets, self-compassion, and coping-motivated drinking, and how these associations differ by gender. Undergraduate problematic drinkers (N = 146) completed self-report measures assessing their motives for drinking (coping-depression, coping-anxiety, enhancement, social, conformity) and levels of dispositional mindfulness (observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, non-reactivity) and self-compassion. Regression analyses revealed that for both genders, mindfulness facets and self-compassion were statistically significantly negatively associated with coping-depression, but not coping-anxiety. Non-judging was uniquely associated with coping-depression in women, but in men, non-reactivity was the sole unique association. Unexpectedly, describing was negatively associated with conformity-motivated drinking in women. Mindfulness and self-compassion based programs for undergraduate problematic drinkers may be most effective if they target students who drink to cope with depression and emphasize different skills depending on the student’s gender
The Evelina Resolution Project: the story of a UK children's hospital's programme to resolve conflicts with families
Get PDFWhen a consultant paediatrician at the Evelina London Children's Hospital made a phone call to a mediator one Friday afternoon in 2012 asking for help to manage an escalating conflict between a family and the health professionals treating their daughter, neither knew that their meeting would lead to the development of the first conflict resolution and mediation training programme in a National Health Service children's hospital. The Evelina Resolution Project has gained international recognition for training health professionals to recognise and manage conflicts between families and health professionals. In this presentation, the doctor and the mediator describe how one case led to a programme of change which is now being trialled in 4 specialist UK children's hospitals with the aim of supporting families and health professionals to have conversations without conflict
Shared Decision Making in Surgery: A Meta-Analysis and Full Systematic Review
Get PDFShared decision-making (SDM), the process where physician and patient reach an agreed-upon choice by understanding the values, concerns, and preferences inherent within each treatment option available, has been increasingly implemented in clinical practice to better health care outcomes. Despite the proven efficacy of SDM to provide better patient-guided care in medicine, its use in surgery has not been studied widely. A search strategy was developed with a medical librarian. It included nine databases from inception until December 2018. After a 2-person title and abstract screen, full-text publications were analyzed in detail. A meta-analysis was done to quantify the impact of SDM in surgical specialties. In total 5,596 studies were retrieved. After duplicates were removed, titles and abstracts were screened, and p-values were recorded, 140 (45 RCTs and 95 cross-sectional studies) were used for the systematic review and 42 for the meta-analyses. Most of the studies noted decreased intervention rate (8 of 14), decisional conflict (13 of 16), and decisional regret (3 of 3), and an increased decisional satisfaction (9 of 12), knowledge (19 of 20), SDM preference (6 of 8), and physician trust (3 of 4) when using SDM. Time increase per patient encounter was inconclusive. The meta-analysis showed that despite high heterogeneity, the results were significant. Far from obviating surgical immediacy, these results suggest that SDM is vital for the best indicators of care. With decreased conflict and anxiety, increasing knowledge and satisfaction, and creating a more whole, trusting relationship, SDM appears to be beneficial in surgery
Mindfulness in medical education: Students’ perceptions and four recommendations for implementation of a mindfulness intervention
Get PDFBackground: Faculties of Medicine around the globe have implemented mindfulness-based curricula to deal with medical student’s burnout, anxiety and depression. The purpose of this qualitative study is to assess students’ perception of a mandatory mindfulness intervention and their recommendations for further curricula development and implementation.Methods: Third-year medical students participated in a mandatory three-hour mindfulness workshop embedded in their family medicine academic week. Eleven students consented to two interviews which explored their perceptions of mindfulness and the workshop in relation to their personal and professional wellbeing as well as their views for the implementation of a longitudinal mindfulness curriculum.Results: Student and institutional benefits and barriers relating to the curriculum were identified. Student’s benefits included positive changes in stress, self-awareness and personally that also translated into self-reported better patient care. Students reported lack of time, forgetting to practice and lack of knowledge about mindfulness as barriers. Institutional pride for their support of student wellness and an overfilled curriculum, were the major institutional benefits and barriers respectively, to the expansion of this curriculum. Among developing an implementing a longitudinal mindfulness curriculum, we found four key features to consider: Firstly to engage the stakeholders; secondly, to incorporate the mindfulness intervention into the curriculum with both a mandatory and elective component; thirdly, to emphasize the clinical implications of the mindfulness intervention and fourthly, to have protected time for wellness interventions.Conclusions: Introducing mindfulness into the undergraduate medical school curriculum through this workshop resulted in perceived personal, institutional and professional benefits. For faculties of medicine that want to implement a mindfulness intervention, we found four key components for implementing a mindfulness intervention in their institutions. Further research is needed to better quantify the benefits and to identify ways to manage barriers at both individual and institutional levels.