effects of meditation on global and factor scores on the BSI: A secondary analysis

This study was a secondary analysis or data collected by Freeman, E., Ruppenthal, B., and Flinders, R. entitled "Meditation on a Passage and Repetition of a Mantram to Enhance Self-Care of Persons with HIV Infection" (1992). Selected data were re-analyzed considering the Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory (Orem, 1995). Self-care consisted of daily repetition of an inspirational passage and mantra, which served as the interventions for the primary study. The primary researchers noted that Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) scores rose significantly after the intervention. Thus, secondary analysis focused on the relationships of the basic conditioning factors (BCF) to the global and factor scores on the BSI before and after the intervention of meditation. Secondary analysis revealed a difference in scores between entry and exit on the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the BSI in reference to the basic conditioning factor of age. By the end of the 10 weeks of meditation, age was no longer a factor in causing GSI scores to increase.