Author: Culos-Reed SN, Mackenzie MJ, Sohl SJ, Jesse MT, Zahavich AN, Danhauer SC.
Affiliation: Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4 ; Department of Psychosocial Resources, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Canada ; Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.
Conference/Journal: Evid Based Complement Alternat Med.
Date published: 2012
Other:
Volume ID: 2012 , Pages: 642576 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1155/2012/642576. , Word Count: 198
Limited research suggests yoga may be a viable gentle physical activity option with a variety of health-related quality of life, psychosocial and symptom management benefits. The purpose of this review was to determine the clinical significance of patient-reported outcomes from yoga interventions conducted with cancer survivors. A total of 25 published yoga intervention studies for cancer survivors from 2004-2011 had patient-reported outcomes, including quality of life, psychosocial or symptom measures. Thirteen of these studies met the necessary criteria to assess clinical significance. Clinical significance for each of the outcomes of interest was examined based on 1 standard error of the measurement, 0.5 standard deviation, and relative comparative effect sizes and their respective confidence intervals. This review describes in detail these patient-reported outcomes, how they were obtained, their relative clinical significance and implications for both clinical and research settings. Overall, clinically significant changes in patient-reported outcomes suggest that yoga interventions hold promise for improving cancer survivors' well-being. This research overview provides new directions for examining how clinical significance can provide a unique context for describing changes in patient-reported outcomes from yoga interventions. Researchers are encouraged to employ indices of clinical significance in the interpretation and discussion of results from yoga studies.
PMID: 23125870