Background: This systematic review aims to answer three questions. First, how much do mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) affect peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)? Second, do mindfulness exercise-based interventions (exercise-MBIs) and mindfulness meditation-based interventions (meditation-MBIs) affect peripheral BDNF differently? Third, does the age of participants and the accumulative hours of MBI practice affect peripheral BDNF? Methods: We included randomized controlled trials comparing MBI and no intervention in adults (age >18 years) who reported peripheral BDNF. Database searches included PubMed, CINAHL, CENTRAL, PsyInfo, and Scopus. Two reviewers independently selected the studies and assessed the trial quality. We used the standardized mean difference (SMD) as the effect size index and conducted moderator analyses. Results: Eleven studies are included in this systematic review. Five studies applying exercise-MBI and three studies applying meditation-MBI are included in the meta-analysis (N = 479). The pooled effect size shows a significantly greater increase of peripheral BDNF in MBI groups compared to the control groups (k = 8, N = 479, SMD = 0.72, 95% CI 0.31-1.14, I 2 = 78%). Significantly more increases of BDNF in the MBI groups are found in both subgroups of exercise-MBI and meditation-MBI. The effect sizes of both subgroups are not significantly different between subgroups (χ 2 = 0.02, p = 0.88). We find no significant correlation between the effect sizes and the age of participants (r = −0.0095, p = 0.45) or accumulative hours of MBI practice (r = 0.0021, p = 0.57). Gomutbutra et al. Mindfulness and BDNF Meta-Analysis Conclusion: The heterogeneous data of this small sample-size meta-analysis suggests that MBI can increase peripheral BDNF. Either exercise-MBI or meditation-MBI can increase peripheral BDNF.
Background: Fatigue is one of the most common non-specific symptoms. Recent studies showed that enhancing psychological flexibility could improve fatigue. In addition, a biomarker in early fatigue was unclear. Our study aims to explore the association of fatigue with psychological flexibility and related biomarkers.
Method: A cross-sectional study gathered data from a baseline characteristic mindful volunteer. Each participant was self-evaluated questionnaire of fatigue and psychological flexibility. They have been evaluated potential factors causing fatigue as sleep quality and depression. The participants were evaluated potential biomarkers related to psychological flexibility including Heart Rate Variability (HRV), serum cortisol, and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) within one week after responding to the questionnaire.
Results: The evaluation was done on 47 healthy females including 22 nurses and 25 occupational therapy students, mean age 29.70 SD 12.55 years. The prevalence of fatigue is 38.30%. The bivariate analysis showed higher negative psychological flexibility score (15.44 SD 5.81 vs 9.14 SD 4.19, p=0.001), higher PSQI score (8.39 SD 2.95 vs 5.97 SD 2.67, p=0.006) and higher BDNF (7.60 SD 3.46 vs 5.69 SD 3.74, p = 0.04) in the fatigue group. The multivariate analysis showed the independent factors associated with fatigue including negative psychological flexibility (OR 1.31, p=0.03) and high BDNF (OR 1.33, p=0.05).
Conclusion: Our study supported the previous finding that psychological flexibility was an independent association with fatigue. BDNF showed association with fatigue which may be the potential biomarkers for detecting early fatigue conditions. Larger sample size would be needed to approve this hypothesis.
Objectives To study the prevalence of and factors related to caregiver burden amongst caregivers of end-stage renal disease patients. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in which data was collected from July 2019 to December 2019 from a total of 152 caregivers aged 18 years and over recruited into this study. Paid caregivers were excluded. The data collected included patient factors, caregiver factors, social support assessment, the Thai version of the Zarit Burden Interview for assessing caregiver burden along with the EQ-5D-5L questionnaire for assessing quality of life. . Results The prevalence of caregiver burden in cases of end-stage renal disease was 18.42%. Factors associated with caregiver burden included single or divorced status, inadequate income, owing money, need for more information and knowledge in caring for patients, low social support, and low quality of life (p < 0.05). Conclusion Caregiver burden screening should be done for individuals providing end-stage chronic kidney disease care including their need for additional information on patient care as well as their economic and social situation. It is important that caregivers be screened as well as supervised. Chiang Mai Medical Journal 2021;60(1):41-52. doi 10.12982/CMUMEDJ.2021.04
Background: an alcohol-use disorders identification test (AUDIT) is a standard screening tool for high-risk drinking behavior. Standard drink calculation is difficult to comprehend and may lead to inaccurate estimates. This study intended to develop a practical pre-screening tool for the identification of high-risk drinkers among young adults. Methods: a cross-sectional survey was conducted in Northern Thailand from July 2016 to December 2016. Data was collected on relevant characteristics and health beliefs about drinking. The 12-month AUDIT was used as the reference standard. Logistic regression was used for the score derivation. The discriminative ability was measured with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AuROC). Result: a total of 1401 young adults were included. Of these, 791 people (56.5%) were current drinkers. Three functional-belief items were identified as independent predictors of high-risk drinking and were used to develop the functional-belief-based alcohol-use questionnaire (FBAQ). The FBAQ demonstrated an acceptable discriminative ability—AuROC 0.74 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70, 0.77). Conclusion: The FBAQ contains only three simple belief questions and does not require unintelligible standard drink calculation. Implementing the FBAQ score and the AUDIT in a serial manner might be a more effective method in a mass-screening program for alcohol-use disorder in young adults.
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