Follow-up data, data obtained some time after the trial, is important as it gives an indication of how durable the effects of meditation might be. Unlike modern Western therapeutic thinking however, meditation was not originally designed to be used as a course of treatment so much as to be part of an ongoing lifestyle thus implying that the benefits of meditation are likely to persist in the follow-up phase only so long as the person chooses to meditate regularly. Meditation instructional programs are usually relatively intense and it is therefore worthwhile determining whether changes brought on by the instructional program can be maintained when participants are left to continue unsupervised with whatever skills they have acquired in the more formal phase of their training. Given that consistent evidence for a specific effect is lacking even within the intervention phase of the 120 randomised controlled trials my review, it is even more unlikely that evidence for an effect will be detectable in the follow-up phases. Of the entire sample of 120 studies in my review, 76 studies did not include any follow-up assessment strategies.
It might also be argued that, since researchers tend to be hampered by lack of resources, the primary question as to whether meditation has any specific effects ought to take priority over questions about the durability of its effects, if there are any. It is therefore understandable that many trials have not included follow-up assessments in their design. For this reason, it was decided that more in depth analysis of follow up data would be of little value to the primary questions set out in my review.