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Designing Hypnotherapy Studies on the Brain-Body Interface: IBS as Model Illness

Douglas Drossman, MD; Eva Szigethy, MD, PhD; and Olafur Palsson, PsyD

Functional gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are costly and have associated symptoms in the brain and body. Several small scale studies have demonstrated the promising impact of psychosocial interventions including hypnotherapy as well as psychopharmacological treatment. Most studies probing the utility of hypnosis for IBS have small sample sizes and methodological weakness that make comparison between studies challenging.

This workshop has three primary objectives: 1) Summarize overview of pathophysiology of IBS and existing treatment studies for IBS including methodological strengths and weaknesses; 2) Outline various study design approaches including retrospective and prospective (e.g., open trial, randomized trials, research registries) options; and 3) Teach about specific essential research study components including defining study population, choosing outcome measures, defining hypnotherapy, choice of control groups, statistical techniques, and defining mediators, moderators, and potential confounders (e.g., placebo response). Research pearls on submitting an IRB proposal as well as grant writing will also be covered. This workshop will allow participants to critically assess existing treatment studies, think more empirically in clinical work, and to design hypnosis studies that will advance the field. The content of this workshop will be applicable to designing intervention studies for other medical conditions as well. Participation in this workshop will allow participants to understand strengths and weakness of existing treatment studies for IBS to more critically assess the validity and generalizability of the findings. In addition, it will allow clinicians to approach their clinical patients in a more empirical manner. Finally, clinical researchers will be given an overview of how to design studies including hypnotherapy that will allow the field to most effectively advance hypnotherapy as an empirically supported treatment for psychological and physical manifestations of disease.