Need pain relief? The answer could be in your mind
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A single session of mind-body therapy could immediately help patients cope with pain during their stay at hospital, a new study suggests.
Published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the results showed that just 15 minutes of either hypnosis or mindfulness training resulted in patients reporting a decrease in pain levels.
Pain management can be a serious concern in hospitals, with studies suggesting that roughly half of inpatients experience acute pain during their stay. If this isn’t controlled, it can result in increased hospitalisation costs and the risk of patients suffering persistent pain. Using opioids to help cope with pain carries the risk of the patient experiencing adverse effects, or developing a dependency on the drug.
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To test the benefits of alternative forms of pain management, researchers from the University of Utah Hospital recruited 244 patients who’d reported ‘intolerable pain’ or ‘inadequate pain control’. These patients were then subjected to 15 minutes of either mindfulness training, hypnotic suggestion or psychoeducation, in which a social worker helped the patient to understand common pain-coping techniques.
The results showed that all 3 therapies were able to immediately produce an effect. Hypnosis had the highest impact, with patients reporting a 29% reduction in pain. Those who underwent mindfulness training reported a 23% pain reduction, and in those subjected to psychoeducation pain was diminished by 9%.
“About a third of the study participants receiving one of the two mind-body therapies achieved close to a 30% reduction in pain intensity,” said Dr Eric Garland, the lead author of the study and director of the University’s Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development. “This clearly significant level of pain relief is roughly equivalent to the pain relief produced by 5 milligrams of oxycodone.”
Studies in the past have suggested that mindfulness training and hypnosis may be effective in pain management. However, this is the first study to show their benefits in a hospital setting.
“It was really exciting and quite amazing to see such dramatic results from a single mind-body session,” Garland continued. “Given our nation’s current opioid epidemic, the implications of this study are potentially huge. These brief mind-body therapies could be cost effectively and feasibly integrated into standard medical care as useful adjuncts to pain management.”
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