Mindfulness, Empathy and Social Integration. Its Relation With Chonic Stress
Condition: Chronic Stress Disorder
MeSH terms: Stress Disorders, Traumatic
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The objective of this project is to evaluate the effects of promoting the learning of empathy
      and pro-social behavior in health and interpersonal relationships in middle-aged children It
      has been shown that pro-social behavior can decrease chronic stress levels and improve the
      response of the immune system and the autonomic nervous system. This behavior, which includes
      a wide variety of actions such as helping, sharing, comforting, informing, emerges early in
      ontogeny and is closely related to empathic processes. Finding ways to teach how to develop
      empathy and perspective could contribute to favor interpersonal relationships and health in
      the school environment, articulating aspects of basic science and applied science. The
      project not only aims to deepen theoretical aspects of chornic stress, empathy and
      pro-sociality, but also to develop concrete tools that diminsh chronic stress and foster
      empathic and cooperative attitudes in the school environment, thus contributing to individual
      and collective well-being.
    

Detailed description: 
      The study will be carried out in primary educational establishments. In the experimental
      group, the proposed intervention will be conducted during the school year. The control group,
      with similar characteristics, will carry out regular curricular activities.

      Informative talks will be given to parents of potential participants, teachers and managers
      of educational establishments, in order to inform about research objectives and methodology.
      The nature of voluntary participation in any of the activities and procedures, as well as the
      confidential treatment of the information will be duly clarified. Informed consent will be
      requested from parents if they agree to participate in the project.

      The intervention program will consist of a weekly meeting of approximately 1 hour during the
      school year, and will be conducted by the researchers together with the teacher in charge of
      the group. This program will include practices that promote self-perception, interoception
      and collaborative activities, followed by an instance of group reflection that promotes
      perspective taking (as in Lozada et al 2017).

      The practices of self-perception and interoception consist, for example, in focusing
      attention on breathing for a period of time that will gradually increase (mindfulness).
      During collaborative actions, children will carry out activities in dyads or in small groups
      that promote empathy and pro-social behavior. The last activity of the intervention will
      consist of an instance of group reflection in which experiences and perceptions of the
      participants will be shared in order to favor perspective taking (i.e. the cognitive ability
      to consider the world from the point of view of the other).

      The variables (pro-social behavior and hair cortisol levels) are quantified at the beginning
      and at the end of each intervention (ie, pre and post-test evaluation). To assess the
      differences in each group, pre-post levels will be compared by means of the paired t test,
      and comparisons between the experimental and control groups will be made by means of variance
      analysis tests and Mann Withney tests and Kruskal Wallis.

      Children participating in the experimental and control groups will be individually evaluated
      using the following methods:

      3) Sociometric questionnaire.

      Stress levels are quantified through:

      1) Hair cortisol dosing. This parameter is an indicator of chronic stress whose advantage is
      that it does not show marked variability throughout the day such as salivary cortisol. For
      this, it is necessary to cut a small strand of hair that will be analyzed later by Pharmacy
      and Biochemistry researchers from the University of Buenos Aires.
    

Intervention name(s): Mindfulness-based intervention
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The behavioral intervention was carried out once a week during 60 minutes from May to November, and included mindfulness-based practices sought to foster self-awareness, and dyadic activities sought to awakening subtle perception of the other.
Group activities, which entailed more than two participants, were also conducted to foster empathic collaboration and prosocialness. Diverse collaborative games were carried out in which mutual help was needed for achieving shared goals in an amusing way .
Perspective-taking was encouraged within the group, by sharing each participant's experience, which included expressing how each child had felt (i.e., if neglected, ignored or cared for) and whether they had enjoyed helping their peers or no.
Other intervention name(s): Self-awareness practices, and other oriented awareness practicess
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: semi-randmized controlled intervention
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: stress; empathy; sociality; cortisol