The Experience of Learning Meditation and Mind/Body Practices in the COPD Population

Context Persons with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) exhibit high levels of comorbid anxiety that severely worsens their sensation of dyspnea and is associated with high levels of avoidance of essential activities resulting in an increase morbidity and mortality. Increasing meditation and mind/body practices have been shown to decrease anxiety, and improve intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships in general populations, however, results of studies in the COPD population have been mixed. Objective Understanding how persons with COPD experience learning meditation and mind/body skills would aid future meditation-focused mind/body intervention design. Design/Setting/Patients A mixed-method study of a community based meditation-focused mind/body intervention for persons with COPD. Measures Reflective journaling, phone exit interviews and survey measures: chronic disease respiratory questionnaire, and Anxiety Sensitivity 3 questionnaire. Intervention Eight weekly one hour meditation-focused mind/body classes that taught concentration and insight meditation skills along with mind/body exercises that facilitated increased body and emotional awareness. Results Out of 41 participants, 32 (73%) contributed detailed experience about learning and practicing meditation and mind/body practices that distilled into four themes, barriers to practice, learning style, emotional processing, and benefits of practice. Of those 32 participants 21 (73%) identified improvement in physical or emotional symptoms. Overall, 13 (40%) participants provided details regarding how they adapted specific meditation skills into daily life to improve emotional function and lessen dyspnea. Anxiety sensitivity to social situations was associated with a lack of participation. Lessons learned for larger scale application to future meditation and mind/body intervention design for chronic illness populations such as COPD are identified.