Mindfulness for palliative care patients. Systematic review.
Carolina de Oliveira Cruz Latorraca, Ana Luiza Cabrera Martimbianco, Daniela Vianna Pachito, Rafael Leite Pacheco, Rachel Riera
International journal of clinical practice December 2017 DOI: 10.1111/ijcp.13034 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Systematic review Randomized Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 234 |
| Population | Palliative care patients, including adult cancer patients in palliative care |
| Intervention | Mindfulness meditation |
| Duration | Eight weeks (one session per week with daily individual practice) in one comparison; a single 5-minute session in another |
| Topics | End-of-life distress Meditation |
| Key findings | Across four randomized trials with 234 palliative care patients, only one trial indicated benefit: a single five-minute mindfulness session improved perceived stress in adult cancer patients at both time points. An eight-week mindfulness program showed a statistically significant difference favoring the control group for physical quality of life. No trial examined safety or harms, and the authors rate the evidence as low or very low quality with high risk of bias. |
Abstract
Nineteen million adults worldwide are in need of palliative care. Of those who have access to it, 80% fail to receive an efficient management of symptoms. To assess the effectiveness and safety of mindfulness meditation for palliative care patients. We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, LILACS, PEDro, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Opengrey, ClinicalTrials.gov and WHO-ICTRP. No restriction of language, status or date of publication was applied. We considered randomised clinical trials (RCTs) comparing any mindfulness meditation scheme vs any comparator for palliative care. Cochrane Risk of Bias (Rob) Table was used for assessing methodological quality of RCTs. Screening, data extraction and methodological assessments were performed by two reviewers. Mean differences (MD) (confidence intervals of 95% (CI 95%)) were considered for estimating effect size. Quality of evidence was appraised by GRADE. Four RCTs, 234 participants, were included. All studies presented high risk of bias in at least one RoB table criteria. We assessed 4 comparisons, but only 2 studies showed statistically significant difference for at least one outcome. 1. Mindfulness meditation (eight weeks, one session/week, daily individual practice) vs control: statistically significant difference in favour of control for quality of life - physical aspects. 2. Mindfulness meditation (single 5-minute session) vs control: benefit in favour of mindfulness for stress outcome in both time-points. None of the included studies analysed safety and harms outcomes. Although two studies have showed statistically significant difference, only one showed effectiveness of mindfulness meditation in improving perceived stress. This study focused on one single session of mindfulness of 5 minutes for adult cancer patients in palliative care, but it was considered as possessing high risk of bias. Other schemes of mindfulness meditation did not show benefit in any outcome evaluated (low and very low quality evidence).
Comparable studies
Other systematic reviews and meta-analyses on end-of-life distress, most cited first.
Citations in the library
Cited by 5
- Unravelling the role of mind-body therapies in paediatric palliative care: A narrative review. Acta Paediatrica May 1, 2024
- Turning toward mortality: yoga's savasana as a salutogenic practice for engaging with death anxiety. Frontiers in Public Health 2026
- Mindfulness-based interventions for pain, anxiety, depression, and quality of life in patients receiving palliative care: a meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Nursing February 26, 2026
- Mindfulness related changes in grey matter: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Brain Imaging and Behavior October 1, 2021
- Mindfulness-Based stress reduction in early palliative care for people with metastatic cancer: A mixed-method study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine December 1, 2019
Cites 2
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