Psychological and behavioural interventions may be effective in reducing menopause-related symptoms. This randomized controlled trial aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in reducing menopause-related symptoms by comparing with an active control group, the menopause education control (MEC). Symptomatic peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women with mild to moderate symptoms were recruited. The primary outcome was overall menopausal symptoms measured by modified Greene Climacteric Scale (GCS). Secondary outcomes include subscales of the GCS perceived stress, mindfulness and health related Quality of Life. All outcome measures were collected at baseline, 2 months (immediately post intervention), 5 and 8 months (3 and 6 months post intervention respectively). Both MBSR (n = 98) and MEC (n = 99) groups reported a reduction in total GCS score at 8 months. Between group analysis show significant symptom score reduction in MBSR group on Anxiety and Depression subscales of GCS. No differences were found between groups on other GCS subscales and majority of the secondary outcome measures. The findings show that menopausal symptoms in both MBSR and MEC significantly reduced over the study period. MBSR show a greater reduction of psychological symptoms of depression and anxiety above active controls but do not reduce other somatic, urogenital and vasomotor symptoms.

BackgroundWe aimed to test a mindfulness-based psychoeducation group (MBPEG), v. a conventional psychoeducation group (CPEG) v. treatment as usual (TAU), in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders over a 24-month follow-up.MethodThis single-blind, multi-site, pragmatic randomized controlled trial was conducted in six community treatment facilities across three countries (Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan). Patients were randomly allocated to one of the treatment conditions, and underwent 6 months of treatment. The primary outcomes were changes in duration of re-hospitalizations and mental state (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale; PANSS) between baseline and 1 week, and 6, 12 and 18 months post-treatment.ResultsA total of 300 patients in each country were assessed for eligibility between October 2013 and 30 April 2014, 38 patients per country (n = 342) were assigned to each treatment group and included in the intention-to-treat analysis. There was a significant difference in the length of re-hospitalizations between the three groups over 24 months (F2,330 = 5.23, p = 0.005), with MBPEG participants having a shorter mean duration of re-hospitalizations than those in the other groups. The MBPEG and CPEG participants had significant differential changes in proportional odds ratios of complete remission (all individual PANSS items <3) over the 24-month follow-up (37 and 26%, respectively), as opposed to only 7.2% of the TAU group (χ2 = 8.9 and 8.0, p = 0.001 and 0.003, relative risk = 3.5 and 3.1, 95% confidence interval 2.0–7.2 and 1.6–6.3).ConclusionsCompared with TAU and CPEG, MBPEG improves remission and hospitalization rates of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders over 24 months.

The training program can be used for preparing generalist nurses of their nursing competencies in disaster preparedness, response and post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation.

The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a modified mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program for reducing the stress, depressive symptoms, and subjective burden of family caregivers of people with dementia (PWD). Methods: A prospective, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial design was adopted. Fifty-seven participants were recruited from the community and randomized into either the modified MBSR group (n ¼ 27) or modified MBCT group (n ¼ 26), receiving seven face-to-face intervention sessions for more than 16 weeks. Various psychological outcomes were measured at baseline (T0), immediately after intervention (T1), and at the 3-month follow-up (T2). Results: Both interventions were found to be feasible in view of the high attendance (more than 70.0%) and low attrition (3.8%) rates. The mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed positive withingroup effects on perceived stress (p ¼ .030, Cohen's d ¼ 0.54), depressive symptoms (p ¼ .002, Cohen's d ¼ 0.77), and subjective caregiver burden (p < .001, Cohen's d ¼ 1.12) in both interventions across the time points, whereas the modified MBCT had a larger effect on stress reduction, compared with the modified MBSR (p ¼ .019). Conclusion: Both the modified MBSR and MBCT are acceptable to family caregivers of PWD. Their preliminary effects were improvements in stress, depressive symptoms, and subjective burden. The modified MBCT may be more suitable for caregivers of PWD than the MBSR. A future clinical trial is needed to confirm their effectiveness in improving the psychological well-being of caregivers of PWD.

What is already known about the topic Recent-onset psychosis is a distressing and disabling mental disorder for both young patients themselves and their first-time family caregivers. A few approaches to family intervention in psychosis such as psycho-education have resulted in a few positive patient outcomes, mainly mental state and relapse from illness, but comparatively few caregivers' health outcomes. Self-care, coping and problem-solving skills training, which is based on the stressvulnerability and stress-coping model, have been more frequently adopted in patients 3 with chronic illnesses, as well as their family carers. Nevertheless, more research should be conducted to prove its positive effects as an early intervention for people with recent-onset psychosis. What this paper adds Self-help, problem-solving-based manual-guided learning programme, or bibliotherapy (in addition to usual care), is more effective to improve family caregivers' and patients psychosocial health conditions in recent-onset psychosis over 6-month follow-up, when compared to usual family support services only. Methods:Following pre-test measurement, caregivers were assigned randomly to one of two study groups: a 5-month self-help, problem-solving-based manual-guided self-learning (or bibliotherapy) programme (in addition to usual care), or usual family support service only.Varieties of patient and caregiver health outcomes were assessed and compared at baseline and at 1-week and 6-month post-intervention. Results:One hundred and eleven (96%) caregivers completed the 6-month follow-up (two post-tests); 55 of them (95%) completed ≥4 modules and attended ≥2 review sessions (i.e., 75% of the intervention). The family participants' mean age was about 38 years and over 64% of them were female and patient's parent or spouse. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that the manual-guided self-learning group reported significantly greater improvements than the usual care group in family burden [F(1,110) Conclusions: Problem-solving-based, manual-guided self-learning programme for family caregivers of adults with recent-onset psychosis can be an effective self-help programme and provide medium-term benefits to patients' and caregivers' mental health and duration of patients' re-hospitalisations.Keywords: bibliotherapy, family intervention, problem-solving, randomised controlled trial, recent-onset psychosis, self-learning. 6What is already known about the topic  Recent-onset psychosis is a distressing and disabling mental disorder for both young patients themselves and their first-time family caregivers. A few approaches to family intervention in psychosis such as psycho-education have resulted in a few positive patient outcomes, mainly mental state and relapse from illness, but comparatively few caregivers' health outcomes. Self-care, coping and problem-solving skills training, which is based on the stressvulnerability and stress-coping model, have been more frequently adopted in patients with chronic illnesses, as well as their f...