Designing Hypnosis Research: Nuts and Bolts from Clinical Cases to Randomized Trials
Eva Szigethy, MD, PhD and Rebecca Burson, DO
Format: MP3 Audio file download

Hypnosis is a therapeutic modality that has growing empirical support across medical and psychiatric conditions. There is, however, much valuable practice of hypnosis in the field that has not yet been validated in research studies. This session will use existing literature to cover how clinicians can conceptualize research questions and how studies ranging from case reports to randomized control trials can be designed to answer the questions appropriately. Specific focus will include selection of study sample, formulation of hypotheses, operationalizing the definition of hypnosis, choosing outcome measures, and appropriate statistical analyses. An overview on obtaining institutional review and grant submissions will also be provided. Such knowledge will help fill the gap of helping clinicians and new researchers utilize research as an instrument to continue to validate hypnosis as an active treatment.

During and at the conclusion of this session, the attendee will be able to:

• Understand various study design approaches including retrospective and prospective (e.g., open trial, randomized trials, research registries) and enumerate pros and cons of each approach;
• Discuss specific study components including defining hypnotherapy, choice of control groups, outcomes (both behavioral and physical), statistical approaches and placebo response; and
• Understand important components of submission of hypnosis studies to the Institutional Review Board and grant applications.