Efectos de un programa de intervención mindfulness y compasión en personas mayores con insomnio

Resumen

Mindfulness has been applied in several adaptations to improve insomnia in the elderly. In adulthood, the benefits have proven and recent studies point out the benefits of mindfulness to treat insomnia in older adults. Older adults may be well suited for mindfulness interventions after decades of contemplative experience. Indeed, there are several reasons to believe that a mindfulness and compassion programme might be an excellent choice to treat insomnia in the elderly, for instance the low cost of the intervention, the long term benefits or the economic benefits of a non-pharmacological treatment. Therefore, this doctoral thesis examines the benefits of a mindfulness and compassion intervention in the elderly with insomnia, distinguishing the subclinical insomnia and the moderate insomnia. The study of these benefits were possible by means of the study of: the health perceived dimension through a subjective question; the positive and negative affect, through the PANAS questionnaire (Positive And Negative Affect Scale); the mindfulness and compassion effect through the FFMQ questionnaire (Five Facets of Mindfulness Scale) and the SCS questionnaire (Self-Compassion Scale); the insomnia severity through the ISI questionnaire (Insomnia Severity Index); and the sleep quality, through the PSQI questionnaire (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index). Furthermore, the traditional sleep models and the possible relationship with the mindfulness and compassion dimensions have been described and linked to the results. The results show that: (A) it is possible to train the mindfulness and the compassion facets in older adults with subclinical or moderate insomnia; (B) the mindfulness and compassion intervention improves the sleep quality and decreases the insomnia severity in the elderly; (C) there has been found a relationship with other dimensions in both groups (older adults with subclinical and moderate insomnia) as a result of the mindfulness and compassion intervention. The health perceived increased and the general affect improved after the intervention in both groups with differences between the subclinical and the moderate group. Thus, a greater knowledge of the relationship between the sleep processes and mindfulness with compassion in the elderly was achieved. Therefore, we provide the first evidence of beneficial effects of a mindfulness and compassion programme to improve sleep disorders such as insomnia in the elderly, regardless of the subclinical or moderate severity.