Loucks EB. PLoS One. 2019 Nov 27;14(11):e0223095.
Mindfulness, described as “nonjudgmentally paying attention on purpose in the present moment,” may be a core which retained healthy lifestyles in societies that develop behavioural determinants of hypertension, including obesity, high salt consumption, sedentary activities, and excessive alcohol intake. High blood pressure patients were given mindfulness-based program, called Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP), that teaches participants the skills of attention control, self-awareness and emotion regulation in mindfulness as well as the execution of those skills in association to modifiable determinants of blood pressure (e.g. physical activity, diet, stress reactivity, antihypertensive medication adherence) may help to boost impacts. Loucks EB et al., conducted stage 1 clinical trial to generate an adapted Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP) program, and analyse acceptableness, viability, and impacts on hypothesized primary proximal self-regulation procedures. Primary outcomes were attention control, self-awareness and emotion regulation. Secondary outcomes were modifiable determinants of blood pressure (BP), and clinic-analysed systolic blood pressure (SBP).
In 2016–2017, participants were enlisted and evaluated. All adults (≥18 years of age), genders and racial/ethnic groups were eligible to be incorporated with hypertension/prehypertension (SBP ≥120 mmHg or DBP ≥80 mmHg or prescribed antihypertensive medication for therapy of hypertension) and should able to speak, read, and write in English. 72 participants were assessed for eligibility and 14 were excluded for not meeting inclusion criteria and 5 participants were not interested, finally, 53 participants were eligible. Acceptability and feasibility findings exhibited that from 53 eligible participants, 48 (91%) patients were enlisted from which 43 (90%) patients took part in at least 7 of the 10 MB-BP classes and followed for 1 year.
All participants in the focus groups (n = 19) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) viewed the delivery modality favourably, and logistic considerations concerning program access were recognized as barriers. A priori selected primary self-regulation outcome exhibited developments incorporating attention control (p<0.001), emotion regulation (p = 0.02), and self-awareness (p<0.001) at one-year follow-up from baseline. Several factors of hypertension were enhanced such as physical activity (p = 0.02), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension consistent diet (p<0.001), and alcohol intake (p<0.001) in participants, patients not adhering to American Heart Association guidelines at baseline. The mean systolic blood pressure exhibited substantial reduction (from 139.3 at baseline to 133.2 mmHg) of 6.1 mmHg (p = 0.008) at one-year follow-up; The stage 2 uncontrolled hypertensives showed most pronounced outcomes (SBP≥140 mmHg), exhibited significant reduction of 15.1 mmHg reduction from baseline at one-year follow-up; n = 19; p = 0.0002. (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Changes in systolic blood pressure (SBP) from baseline through follow-up after MB-BP intervention
Thus, it was concluded that MB-BP may participate with self-regulation and behavioural factors of hypertension with good acceptableness and viability.
