A 10-week mindfulness and compassion-oriented meditation training for 28 interdisciplinary palliative care staff was piloted to reduce distress and foster resilience. Significant improvements occurred in two of three burnout components (emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment), anxiety, stress, two emotional regulation competences, and joy at work. 85% of individual goals were attained. Qualitative data indicated enhanced self-care, mindful pauses in work routines, reduced rumination and distress from patient contact, and improved team communication. The authors suggest the training may be a feasible and effective way to reduce caregiver distress and enhance resources for palliative care teams.
A mindfulness-based group intervention for patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers improved patients' existential well-being and confidence in advance care planning, while usual-care patients did not show these gains. Caregivers in the mindfulness program also reported moderate improvements in quality of life and reduced burden one month later. However, most other outcomes—including anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and cognitive avoidance—did not differ significantly between the mindfulness and usual-care groups. The pilot trial randomly assigned 33 patient-caregiver dyads to six weekly mindfulness sessions and 22 dyads to usual care, recruiting from five oncology clinics in the midwestern United States.
Palliative care clinicians view existential distress as a common and often inadequately treated psychosocial-spiritual problem that resists purely medical approaches. They see psychedelic-assisted therapies (PAT) as a potentially powerful tool for refractory existential distress but believe a stronger evidence base is needed. Because PAT do not fit existing treatment models, barriers remain, including stigma and limited education about their medical use. Larger clinical trials and educational outreach are needed to clarify treatment targets and address safety concerns, and integration into palliative care should emphasize collaboration with spiritual care and mental health providers while addressing equitable access.