Defining a complex intervention: The development of demarcation criteria for “meditation”.

A panel of 7 meditation experts reached consensus through a 5-round Delphi study on essential criteria for defining meditation for systematic review. Essential features include a defined technique, logic relaxation, and a self-induced state. Optional features include psychophysical relaxation, a self-focus skill or anchor, altered consciousness, mystical experience, suspension of logical thought, embedding in a religious/spiritual/philosophical context, or mental silence. The results highlight challenges in distinguishing meditative from nonmeditative practices and offer an approach to operationalizing meditation for comparative research.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The authors used a 5-round Delphi study with a panel of 7 experts in meditation research to achieve agreement on a set of criteria for a working definition of “meditation” for use in a comprehensive systematic review of the therapeutic use of meditation. Participants agreed that essential to a meditation practice is its use of (a) a defined technique, (b) logic relaxation, and (c) a self-induced state. Participants also agreed that a meditation practice may (d) involve a state of psychophysical relaxation somewhere in the process; (e) use a self-focus skill or anchor; (f) involve an altered state/mode of consciousness, mystic experience, enlightenment or suspension of logical thought processes; (g) be embedded in a religious/spiritual/philosophical context; or (h) involve an experience of mental silence. The results of this study provide insight into the challenges faced by researchers who want to demarcate meditative practices from nonmeditative practices, and they describe an approach to this problem that may prove useful for researchers trying to operationalize meditation in the context of comparative research.