Clinical trial NCT01599598: Coherence Training for Military Personnel
Official title: Coherence Training for Military Personnel
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Stress
Keywords: perceived stress
depression
anxiety
posttraumatic stress disorder
military
school
training environment
heart rate variability
progressive muscle relaxation
psychophysiological coherence
coherence advantage
stress reduction
stress regulation
independent duty corpsmen
Lead sponsor: United States Naval Medical Center, San Diego
Sponsor class: FED
First posted: 2012-05-16
Enrollment: 192
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Military operations and training situations present many physical and psychological challenges for service members to adapt to and overcome. The challenges of these changing conditions necessitate having to cope with stress, which is seen as the negative perceptions, feelings, and emotions that manifest from the subjective physical and/or mental strain on life processes. In addition, service members are returning from deployments having gone through traumatic experiences that can develop into posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or other serious conditions. The Surface Warfare Independent Duty Corpsman (IDC) School is an example of a training environment where some students may be entering the program with symptoms of PTSD, which may preclude or make it more difficult for them to perform well. Autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysregulation has been observed in patients with PTSD and those experiencing chronic stress, such that there is more arousing, sympathetic input to the heart than calming, parasympathetic input, which is usually the dominant division of the ANS involved in controlling one's heart rate. The IDC training program is an example of an environment where the service member is expected to excel while being subjected to multiple sources of stress. The fast tempo coupled with performance expectations may induce stress and actually inhibit learning. The Institute of HeartMath has developed the Coherence Advantage program which teaches one to self-regulate their emotions while focusing on breathing to compliment the active process of self-regulation. In conjunction, the emWave Personal Stress Reliever allows the user to receive heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback, hence giving the user the opportunity to self-regulate their ANS through breathing and self-regulation techniques. The proposed study will test the effectiveness of the Coherence Advantage program versus progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) in reducing stress symptomatology among Surface Warfare IDC students. The effectiveness of these two different interventions will be compared on outcomes of PTSD, depression, anxiety, sleep quality, perceived stress, attrition, and class performance.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Sailors
* Enrolled as students in the Surface Warfare Medicine Institute's Independent Duty Corpsman School

Exclusion Criteria:

* Administratively rolled over into another class
* Dropped out of the school (due to academic or medical reasons)

Primary outcomes:
measure: Stress symptomatology
timeFrame: 12 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: School performance
timeFrame: 12 months
measure: Attrition
timeFrame: 12 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: San Diego
country: United States
facility: Surface Warfare Medicine Institute
state: California
Study officials:
affiliation: U.S. Navy, Medical Service Corps, Naval Center for Combat & Operational Stress Control (NCCOSC)
name: Scott L Johnston, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: