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What article did you choose?
The article chosen for the assignment was Mindfulness meditation for chronic pain: systematic review and meta-analysis by Hilton et al. (2017).
Why did you select this article versus the others?
There are several reasons why I chose this article. First, the type of study used by the research team is meta-analysis. This type of inquiry produces results that are both encompassing and reliable. On the one hand, it utilizes a broad range of evidence available in the academic literature to obtain a more objective view of the matter. On the other hand, it uses a set of well-defined criteria for the inclusion of data (Schmidt & Hunter, 2015). When both of these conditions are met with a sufficient degree of academic integrity, it is possible to expect that the findings will be accurate and at the same time applicable to a wide array of settings, which is only partially true for the experimental design. The second reason for the selection of the article is its source. The paper in question was published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, which I was able to verify as a reliable and valid scholarly journal. It is also worth mentioning that the journal in question is peer-reviewed, which is an essential determinant of quality and may serve as an additional factor in its favor.
What did you learn from the article? You must list three things.
The first thing I learned from the article is directly related to the results of the study. According to Hilton et al. (2017), mindfulness does have a positive effect in terms of pain reduction among patients suffering from chronic conditions. The researchers also reported a statistically significant effect in the reduction of depression symptoms and an improvement in perceived quality of life among the participants (Hilton et al., 2017). This result is allegedly common in the scholarly literature on mindfulness and can be considered a confirmation of my pre-existing beliefs. Second, the authors pointed to the weakness of the evidence in support of their conclusions.
Specifically, the majority of the RCTs chosen for the meta-analysis were considered low-quality evidence, primarily due to the size of the samples involved. While there exists a multitude of studies that report positive effects of mindfulness, they are predominantly qualitative studies with small samples, which prevents the responsible researchers from using them as a basis for a conclusion. Third, I learned that the effectiveness of mindfulness intervention was not related to any of the studied parameters, such as its length, frequency, or patients medical condition. While it is tempting to consider this information proof of the overall effectiveness of the intervention, it is also necessary to consider the possibility of a flawed methodology as a reason for such unlikely uniformity.
When was the article published?
The article was originally published on September 22, 2016.
Has the article changed your opinion about the topic you are researching?
The article has changed y opinion about the topic. Before familiarizing myself with the findings, I was convinced that the positive effects of mindfulness-based interventions were conclusively proven by numerous studies. Now it is evident that the overwhelming majority of these studies are of minor value in terms of scientific integrity, and those that can be considered the reliable report the results that are either inconsistent or of little practical value for the clinical setting. From a broader perspective, I was also able to better understand the principles of responsible inquiry. The article contains a detailed description of the process of establishing the quality of evidence presented in a scholarly source that may be effectively used during unrelated research.
References
Hilton, L., Hempel, S., Ewing, B. A., Apaydin, E., Xenakis, L., Newberry, S.,& Maglione, M. A. (2017). Mindfulness meditation for chronic pain: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 51(2), 199-213.
Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (2015). Methods of meta-analysis: Correcting error and bias in research findings (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications.
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