A Preliminary Mixed Methods Study of Health-Related Quality-of-Life at Three Regional Universities in Cambodia
Keywords:
Cambodia, Transcendental meditation, Health, Qualityof-life, University facultyAbstract
The range of outcomes and published record on the Transcendental Meditation technique across 50 years of research in education, business, and government makes its application unique. Its association with health and relation to an individual’s quality-of-life have also made the technique useful in some developing countries.
Data related to application of the technique to higher education in Cambodia have been accruing since the early 1990s. The 26-year research program begun by these authors associated with Transcendental Meditation and non-verbal intelligence, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, learning, memory, and personality in university students, as well as its collective effects on economic and social indicators and reductions in socio-political violence and crime, makes for an uncommonly rich body of knowledge in a country where empirical research has been rare.
The present study extends that program to include an investigation of the practice of Transcendental Meditation by faculty in three regional Cambodian universities and examines its impact on health-related quality-of-life. Findings generated by a concurrent, quasi-experimental mixed methods design suggest the practice may be of benefit to university personnel as measured by health, self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, among other quality-of-life variables, thereby adding to previous results associated with higher education in this increasingly important south-east Asian nation. Affirmative quantitative and qualitative results derived from MANOVAs, Hedges’ effect sizes and semi-structured interviews related to ten quality-of-life indicators have been reported.
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