Hypnotherapy for disability-related pain: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Hypnotherapy can address the biopsychosocial aspects of disability-related pain, although the available evidence is limited in quality and quantity. Meta-analytic techniques were utilised to evaluate 10 controlled studies. Hypnotherapy produced significant short-term improvements in fatigue, pain experience and affect. However, a lack of significance was noted at 3- to 6-month follow-up. A beneficial effect size (d(w)= 0.53; confidence interval = 0.28-0.84) in comparison to control conditions was reported, although comparability with other cognitive-behavioural treatments could not be confirmed across the few studies reporting this data (d(w)= 0.06; confidence interval = -0.33 to 0.45). The findings highlight the need for further controlled and longitudinal research in this area.

A Meta‐Analysis of Hypnotherapeutic Techniques in the Treatment of PTSD Symptoms

“…Therefore, using hypnotherapy to induce a calming atmosphere, while suggesting changes in sensations and perceptions can be advantageous. Researchers have shown the efficacy of hypnotherapy in meta-analyses on disabilityrelated pain and irritable bowel syndrome (Bowker & Dorstyn, 2014;Lee, Choi, & Choi, 2014). The effectiveness of hypnotic techniques has also been shown in case studies of United States veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars with posttraumatic stress, though these are less compelling (Brende & Benedict, 1980;Degun-Mather, 2001).…”

Hypnosis for Clinical Pain Management: A Scoping Review of Systematic Reviews

“…We did not identify any new articles with our second search performed on December 31, 2019. Thus, we included a total of 13 systematic reviews or meta-analyses that synthesized results from 99 RCTs or non-randomized clinical trials published from 1841 to 2017 that evaluated the effects of hypnosis on pain [15][16][17][18][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. There were overlapping trials between reviews: overall, there were 77 unique trials that included data from more than 6,882 participants (one review did not report sample sizes [33]).…”

“…Five of the reviews summarized in this paper reviewed the effects of hypnosis on procedural pain [18,28,29,34,35], four reviewed studies examining the effects of hypnosis on chronic pain [16,32,33,36], and four reviewed trials that examined the effects of hypnosis on other pain conditions [15,17,30,31]. However, the authors of one of the reviews that sought to evaluate the effects of hypnosis on end-of-life cancer pain were unable to find any trials to review that met their inclusion criteria [31].…”

“…Five unique trials included in three reviews used audio recordings to teach hypnosis without any face-to-face sessions [17,18,35]. Although most trials provided hypnosis treatment to individual patients, the reviewers also reported on some trials that used group therapy for teaching hypnosis [15,29,36]. Seven trials included in two reviews used hypnosis combined with visual or thermal imagery [28,33].…”

“…There were also large differences in the dose (e.g., number and length of sessions) of hypnosis and who provided the hypnotic interventions. Three reviews did not provide any information regarding the dose used in the trials reviewed [28,30,33], and only seven reviewers provided some information regarding who provided the hypnosis treatment, including the level of expertise of the clinicians [15,[28][29][30][34][35][36]. Only one review reported on the training and experience of the treatment deliverer [35].…”