Psychobiological Effects of Meditation on Offenders With Psychopathy

NCT ID: NCT02894203

Last Updated: 2016-09-09

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: UNKNOWN
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 60 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2016-09-30
• Study Completion Date: 2017-02-28

Brief Summary

The investigators aim to explore the psychobiological effects of a 5-day meditation intervention on offenders within dangerous and severe personality disorders (DSPD) unit at HMP Whitemoor. DSPD unit accommodates offenders with psychopathy or with two or more personality disorders. DPSD unit provides them with a 5-year rehabilitation programme that consists of group and individual therapy and aims to improve their self-regulation.

This project includes a total of 60 participants and has two major methodological innovations. First, it will include yoga as an active control group that will be matched to the meditation intervention (which means it will have the same length and the same social components) and a passive control group that will be following their usual regimen. Thus, the effects of meditation will be contrasted with another type of intervention and with not receiving any intervention.

The second methodological innovation is the combination of psychological and biological measures. Psychological measures include questionnaires (emotion regulation, mindfulness, stress) and cognitive measures (attention,empathy,behavioural control). Biological measures include EEG to measure brain activity related to empathy; gene expression and protein interlukin-6 to measure changes in immune system; and stress related hormone cortisol. The investigators also aim to determine to whom does meditation benefit the most by exploring how initial expectations of meditation, personality, mood and previous life adversity predict outcomes of meditation or yoga. The data will be collected at three time points: at baseline, immediately after and 10 weeks after the 5-day intervention.

The investigators expect that meditation and yoga will similarly improve mental and physical health. If this hypothesis are confirmed, these results will extend previous findings on the benefits of meditation and yoga to vulnerable populations, and would provide a cost-effective addition to prisoner rehabilitation.

Conditions

Mindfulness; Yoga

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Mindfulness

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Mindfulness

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Hatha Yoga

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Yoga

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Wait-list

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Mindfulness

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Yoga

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Male offenders with dangerous and severe personality disorder aged 18-65 who will remain in the prison until at least February 2017.

Exclusion Criteria

• Major psychiatric or neurological disorders, previous meditation or yoga experience, unable to follow instructions in English,

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 65 Years
• Eligible Sex: MALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Coventry University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Ivana Buric

MA, Doctoral candidate

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Other Identifiers

13274-24

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id