Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces chronic cancer-related fatigue: a treatment study

Introduction: About one-third of cancer survivors suffer from severe chronic fatigue. Aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive group therapy in reducing severe chronic fatigue in cancer survivors with mixed diagnoses. Patients and Methods: Participants (n=100) were randomly selected from a cohort and allocated to an intervention and a waiting list condition. Analyses were based on 59 participants in the intervention condition and 24 in the waiting-list condition. Fatigue severity (Checklist Individual Strength), functional impairment (Sickness Impact Profile) and well being (Health and Disease-Inventory) were assessed before and after the 9-week intervention. The intervention group had a follow-up 6 months following the intervention. Results: At post-treatment measurement the proportion of clinically improved participants was 30%, versus 4% in the waiting list condition (chi(2) (1) 56.71; p50.007). The mean fatigue score at post-measurement was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the waiting list group corrected for pre-treatment level of fatigue. The mean well-being score at postmeasurement was significantly higher in the intervention group than in the waiting list group corrected for pre-treatment level of well-being. The treatment effect was maintained at 6-month follow-up. No difference between the two conditions was found in functional impairment. Discussion: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is an effective treatment for chronic cancerrelated fatigue. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.