Cost savings with clinical solutions: the impact of reforming health and health care economics with integrative therapies

The Proposed Task Force Hypnosis Efficacy Guidelines: The Role of Moderation and Mediation in Efficacy Trials

Hypnosis interventions have too often failed to disseminate, in part because of the relatively few high-quality, randomized clinical trials. The Task Force proposes efficacy guidelines, which are intended to improve the quality of clinical hypnosis research and thereby increase dissemination of beneficial hypnosis interventions. However, the Task Force, in muddying the focus on efficacy with opinions about moderation and mediation, proposes guidelines that are likely to: (1) weaken efficacy findings; (2) increase participant mistrust; (3) make efficacy trials more cumbersome; and, (4) treat hypnosis as though it were something other than a time-honored form of talk therapy. While applauding the Task Force's intentions, the current recommendations could be changed to better accomplish their goal of increasing hypnosis dissemination and implementation.

Interest and Attitudes about Hypnosis in a Large Community Sample

Despite the available empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of hypnosis for alleviating symptoms and side effects across a variety of clinical contexts, hypnosis has failed to disseminate widely. One way to try to better understand the lack of hypnosis dissemination is to apply a marketing theory approach, focusing on attitudes and beliefs about a product (hypnosis) held by consumers. Better understanding of such factors can lead to strategies to promote the product among consumers, and in this case, encourage dissemination. The goal of the study was to investigate relationships between interest in hypnosis use and: 1) attitudes about hypnosis; 2) beliefs about the effectiveness of hypnosis (i.e., hypnosis credibility, and hypnosis effectiveness expectancies); 3) past experience with hypnosis; and 4) the perceived hedonic value and utility of hypnosis. The study also explored participants' preferences for hypnosis delivery method (i.e., live or recorded), as well as preferences for hypnosis labeling (i.e., how hypnosis is defined). Participants (N = 509) were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk and completed an anonymous online survey. The results revealed that participants' attitudes about hypnosis, their expectancies for the effectiveness of hypnosis, and the perceived hedonic value of hypnosis accounted for unique variance in participants' interest in hypnosis, ps < .05. Together, these variables accounted for 73% of the variance in participants' interest in hypnosis use. Based on these findings, we recommend that these key variables should be considered when planning for greater dissemination and uptake of empirically supported hypnosis interventions.

Disseminating hypnosis to health care settings: Applying the RE-AIM framework

Hypnosis is a brief intervention ready for wider dissemination in medical contexts. Overall, hypnosis remains underused despite evidence supporting its beneficial clinical impact. This review will evaluate the evidence supporting hypnosis for dissemination using guidelines formulated by Glasgow and colleagues (1999). Five dissemination dimensions will be considered: Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM).

REACH

In medical settings, hypnosis is capable of helping a diverse range of individuals with a wide variety of problems.

EFFICACY

There is evidence supporting the use of hypnosis for chronic pain, acute pain and emotional distress arising from medical procedures and conditions, cancer treatment-related side-effects and irritable bowel syndrome.

ADOPTION

Although hypnosis is currently not a part of mainstream clinical practices, evidence suggests that patients and healthcare providers are open to trying hypnosis, and may become more so when educated about what hypnosis can do.

IMPLEMENTATION

Hypnosis is a brief intervention capable of being administered effectively by healthcare providers.

MAINTENANCE

Given the low resource needs of hypnosis, opportunities for reimbursement, and the ability of the intervention to potentially help medical settings reduce costs, the intervention has the qualities necessary to be integrated into routine care in a self-sustaining way in medical settings. In sum, hypnosis is a promising candidate for further dissemination.

Hypnosis for cancer care: over 200 years young

Answer questions and earn CME/CNE Hypnosis has been used to provide psychological and physical comfort to individuals diagnosed with cancer for nearly 200 years. The goals of this review are: 1) to describe hypnosis and its components and to dispel misconceptions; 2) to provide an overview of hypnosis as a cancer prevention and control technique (covering its use in weight management, smoking cessation, as an adjunct to diagnostic and treatment procedures, survivorship, and metastatic disease); and 3) to discuss future research directions. Overall, the literature supports the benefits of hypnosis for improving quality of life during the course of cancer and its treatment. However, a great deal more work needs to be done to explore the use of hypnosis in survivorship, to understand the mediators and moderators of hypnosis interventions, and to develop effective dissemination strategies.

Complementary medicine in cancer care: adding a therapy dog to the team

Animal-assisted therapy, including visits from certified therapy dogs, offer a valuable and often underutilized resource for addressing unmet needs in cancer patients. Prospective research studies have documented symptomatic benefits for reducing pain, psychological distress, and fatigue in a variety of patient populations, including cancer patients. Utilizing consistent policies minimizes patient risk and infection control concerns associated with animal visits.