A systematic meta-review of hypnosis as an empirically supported treatment for pain

Abstract

A newly developed methodological technique (the systematic meta-review) was applied to determine whether hypnosis is an empirically supported treatment for pain. This involved, initially, a systematic search of the published literature for review studies. These reviews were then subjected to a validated quality scale. There was sufficient evidence of good quality to allow the conclusion that hypnosis does have demonstrable efficacy in the treatment of pain. The only meta-analysis of hypnotically induced analgesia1 showed that 'the average participant treated with hypnosis demonstrated greater analgesic response that 75% of participants in standard and no-treatment control groups' (p. 143). The hypothesis that poor-quality reviews are more likely to produce positive conclusions was not supported. A citation database of all reviews has been assembled and can be extended with time.