A meta-analysis of hypnotically induced analgesia: How effective is hypnosis?

Abstract

Over the past two decades, hypnoanalgesia has been widely studied; however, no systematic attempts have been made to determine the average size of hypnoanalgesic effects or establish the generalizability of these effects from the laboratory to the clinic. This study examines the effectiveness of hypnosis in pain management, compares studies that evaluated hypnotic pain reduction in healthy volunteers vs. those using patient samples, compares hypnoanalgesic effects and participants' hypnotic suggestibility, and determines the effectiveness of hypnotic suggestion for pain relief relative to other nonhypnotic psychological interventions. Meta-analysis of 18 studies revealed a moderate to large hypnoanalgesic effect, supporting the efficacy of hypnotic techniques for pain management. The results also indicated that hypnotic suggestion was equally effective in reducing both clinical and experimental pain. The overall results suggest broader application of hypnoanalgesic techniques with pain patients.

Hypnosis for Chronic Pain Management

“…We did not test patients for degree of suggestibility because we, as do other researchers [50][51][52] think all patients can benefit from hypnotic interventions and that suggestibility levels can be increased with practice.…”

Efficacy of selected complementary and alternative medicine interventions for chronic pain

“…In the first study, the authors performed a meta-analysis of 18 studies of laboratory and clinical pain [96]. The average effect size across studies was 0.67, which lies squarely between a medium (0.50) and large (0.80) effect.…”

“…Three recent reviews cover the bulk of published RCTs of hypnotic analgesia [95][96]. In the first study, the authors performed a meta-analysis of 18 studies of laboratory and clinical pain [96].…”

The use of suggestive methods, including hypnotherapy, in obstetric practice

“…Первоначально гипноз использовался для анестезии при меди-цинских вмешательствах, однако в последние де-сятилетия появились исследования, демонстри-рующие эффективность гипнотерапии в лечении хронических болевых синдромов [6,8], в том чис-ле при терминальных стадиях злокачественных новообразований , нейропатических болевых син-дромах, головной боли [9][10][11][12]. При этом в части исследований показана высокая эффективность гипнотерапии в сравнении с негипнотическими техниками [13,14].…”