Gulf War Illness: A Randomized Controlled Trial Combining Mindfulness Meditation and Auricular Acupuncture.

Autor:	Breneman CB; Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc, Bethesda, MD, USA.; Department of Veterans Affairs, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA., Reinhard MJ; Department of Veterans Affairs, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA.; Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA., Allen N; Department of Veterans Affairs, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA., Belouali A; Innovation Center for Biomedical Informatics, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA., Chun T; Department of Veterans Affairs, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA., Crock L; Department of Veterans Affairs, War Related Illness and Injury Study Center(WRIISC), Washington, DC, USA., Duncan AD; Integrative Healing, LLC, Hyattsville, MD, USA., Dutton MA; Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Global advances in integrative medicine and health [Glob Adv Integr Med Health] 2023 May 03; Vol. 12, pp. 27536130231171854. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 03 (Print Publication: 2023).
DOI:	10.1177/27536130231171854
Abstrakt:	Background: Many Gulf War (GW) Veterans report chronic symptoms including pain, fatigue, and cognitive impairment, commonly defined as Gulf War Illness (GWI). Complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies may potentially improve multiple symptoms of GWI. Objective: To examine the effectiveness of combining 2 commonly available CIH therapies, mindfulness meditation and auricular acupuncture, in improving health-related functioning and multiple symptom domains of GWI (e.g., pain, fatigue). Methods: This study was a randomized controlled trial in which Veterans with GWI were randomly assigned to either the intervention group (n = 75), wherein they received 2 distinct CIH therapies - mindfulness meditation and auricular acupuncture, or the active control group, wherein they received a GW Health Education (GWHE) program (n = 74), each lasting 8 weeks. Self-report health measures were assessed at baseline, endpoint, and 3 month follow-up. Results: In the intention-to-treat analyses, there were significant between-group differences for mental-health related functioning, fatigue, depression symptoms, and Kansas total severity scores for symptoms in which the CIH group had improved scores for these outcomes at endpoint compared to the GWHE group (all P ≤ .05). The CIH group also had significant reductions in pain interference at endpoint and follow-up compared to baseline (estimated marginal mean difference: -2.52 and -2.22, respectively; all P = .01), whereas no significant changes were observed in the GWHE group. For pain characteristics, the GWHE group had a worsening of pain at endpoint compared to baseline (estimated marginal mean difference: +2.83; P = .01), while no change was observed in the CIH group. Conclusion: Findings suggest a possible beneficial effect of combining 2 CIH therapies, mindfulness meditation and auricular acupuncture, in reducing overall symptom severity and individual symptom domains of fatigue, musculoskeletal, and mood/cognition in Veterans with GWI. Trial Registration: Clinical Trials identifier NCT02180243. Competing Interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The opinions presented in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of any institution/agency of the U.S. government, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., or Georgetown University. (© The Author(s) 2023.)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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