The experience of MBCTca in people with cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer: A Qualitative Analysis
IRAS ID
154335
Contact name
Catherine Derbyshire
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Hull and East Yorkshire Trust
Research summary
Mindfulness is most commonly described as ‘paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the-present moment and non-judgementally.’(Kabat-Zinn, 1990). The secular application of mindfulness in clinical practice was developed in the 1970’s by Kabat-Zinn who introduced the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. Since its inception, MBSR he has been used and evaluated across a multitude of clinical conditions. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT, Segal, Williams and Teasdale, 2002) is a development of the original course, and was first offered to people with recurrent depression. MBCT is recommended by NICE (2009) for the people who have had three or more episodes of depression as it has been reliably shown to reduce the rate of relapse. A recent development, MBCT for Cancer (MBCT-ca, Bartley, 2012), is aimed specifically at individuals facing the challenge of cancer.
It is widely recognised that people and with cancer and their relatives suffer from emotional and psychological distress. Zabora et al. (2001) found prevalence rates of psychological distress of 35%. NICE Guidelines (2004) for the supportive and palliative care of patients recommend that patients are offered psychological interventions as part of their care. Mindfulness approaches have been shown to be effective in reducing anxiety and depression in cancer sufferers (Piet, Wurtzen and Zachariae, 2012; Shennan, Payne and Fenlon, 2010).
MBCTca has as yet not been evaluated. In addition, the mechanisms of change in mindfulness approaches in cancer, and the subjective experience of participants is less well understood.
The current study aims to explore and understand the experience of participants who have completed a MBCT-ca programme. The study will employ a qualitative design, in which the main body of data will be collected via semi structured interviews.
REC name
London - Bloomsbury Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1241
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion