Trial results for a home-based intervention to promote mindful breathing awareness through pursed-lip breathing training for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients were posted on ClinicalTrials.gov on 2025-06-06, involving 99 participants.
Background
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a progressive lung disease characterized by airflow obstruction, leading to symptoms such as breathlessness, coughing, and wheezing. Managing breathlessness and associated emotional distress is a significant challenge for patients. Interventions that can be delivered at home, such as mindful breathing techniques like pursed-lip breathing, offer potential avenues for improving patient self-management and quality of life. This study aimed to evaluate such a home-based intervention.
Trial design
This completed study, designated as Phase NA, enrolled 99 participants with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The trial evaluated a home-based pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) system compared to the home-based PR system augmented with a mindful breathing module. Investigators hypothesized that the intervention would decrease breathlessness while increasing emotional perception, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness.
Key results
The trial reported several key measurements:
- Breathlessness (score on a scale):
- The Intervention group reported mean scores of 0.68 and 0.34.
- The Control group reported mean scores of 0.71 and 0.83.
- Emotion (score on a scale):
- The Intervention group reported mean scores of 0.45 and 0.35.
- The Control group reported mean scores of 0.55 and 0.5.
- Physical Activity (steps per day):
- The Intervention group reported mean values of 765.98 and -181.78.
- The Control group reported mean values of 701.5 and 290.36.
What this means
The posted results provide initial data on the effects of a home-based mindful breathing intervention for COPD patients. The intervention group demonstrated lower mean breathlessness scores compared to the control group in the reported measurements. For emotion, the intervention group also showed lower mean scores, which contrasts with the stated hypothesis of increasing emotional perception. Physical activity measurements presented mixed results between the intervention and control groups. These findings contribute to understanding the potential impact of mindful breathing techniques on breathlessness and other patient-reported outcomes in COPD.
Source
The information regarding these trial results was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a public database of clinical studies. The results for the study NCT05349123, titled "A Home-based Intervention to Promote Mindful Breathing Awareness Through Pursed-lip Breathing Training for COPD Patients", were posted on 2025-06-06 on clinicaltrials.gov.