Meditation for the reduction of perioperative anxiety in patients undergoing oncology surgery: A scoping review.
Asia-Pacific journal of oncology nursing – August 01, 2024
Source: PubMed
Summary
Meditation may significantly reduce anxiety for patients undergoing oncology surgeries, particularly during the postoperative period. Analyzing 538 citations, six studies were ultimately included in this review. Findings suggest that guided, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditation can alleviate anxiety in breast cancer surgery patients. Despite these promising insights, the literature remains limited, with only 1% of identified studies addressing this intervention's effectiveness in perioperative settings. Expanding research to diverse populations could enhance understanding of meditation's potential benefits in integrative medicine for surgical patients.
Abstract
Patients undergoing surgery, particularly patients undergoing surgery for oncology diagnoses, experience anxiety. Surgery remains the primary treatment for many common types of cancer. One promising potential intervention to alleviate anxiety in the preoperative and postoperative period is meditation, an integrative medicine intervention. However, there remains a gap in the literature regarding the effectiveness of meditation to alleviate anxiety during the perioperative time period. The scoping review was conducted using the Arksey and O'Malley framework to synthesize the study findings and was reported with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). The review included EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL Plus, Scopus, and Cochrane Review databases from 2013 through 2024. All identified articles were exported to the online systematic review software, Covidence. A total of 538 initial citations were identified, 415 titles and abstracts were screened, and 83 full-text articles reviewed. Six studies were finally included. The data extracted from the literature included: study purpose, study design, sample size, preoperative or postoperative timeframe, instrument to evaluate anxiety, and conclusions. For patients undergoing oncology surgery, the perioperative period can be filled with anxiety. Guided, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditation may be helpful in reducing anxiety, particularly in patients undergoing surgery for breast cancer during the postoperative period. However, the current literature is extremely limited. Future research should expand on the preliminary effectiveness to broader populations and carefully target the highest-risk populations for the ideal time point for interventions.