A pilot randomized-controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of a Live-Online Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis and their Families’: The Making Mindfulness Matter© in Children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Study.

Project Overview

The goal of our research study is to better understand the comorbidity of mental health and disease in a sample of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and their primary caregiver(s). There are very broad rates reported of the frequency of mental health issues in children with JIA and scant research showing the mental health toll of JIA on their caregiver(s). We aim to provide children with JIA and their caregiver(s) an innovative intervention called Making Mindfulness Matter (M3©), that may improve health-related quality of life and mental health symptoms (for example anxiety, depression and stress).
M3© is a parent and child program that supports caregivers by offering a new approach to parenting in stressful situations, and helps children build skills to manage their big emotions and behaviors, think more positively, and build caring relationships with those around them.
We propose to study these goals by randomly assigning patients and their caregiver(s) to receive the M3© program or to be on a short-term waiting list. All child/caregivers will receive the program. We will gather information on the burden of mental health symptoms in children and their caregiver(s) before participation. Next, we will investigate whether participation in the program has a positive effect on the following outcomes: health related quality of life for the child, child mental health, and caregiver well-being and stress, and disease activity levels and pain ratings.
A better understanding of the burden of mental health problems in this population will help to determine if regular early identification of mental health concerns in this population is an important practice for arthritis care providers; and should our study show encouraging results, we will be in a position to perform a larger clinical trial as the next step to optimize outcomes for our patients and their caregivers living with JIA.

Partners and Donors

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