Hypnosis Compared to Stress Reducing Strategy in Burn Patients

Any kind of burn, whether it is a first, second, or third degree burn, is painful. In addition to the pain felt from the burn, burn victims have to keep their wounds covered to help the healing process and prevent infection. Patients with severe burns have to go through frequent dressing changes to keep the burned area clean. This process is often very painful.

As you can imagine, being burned can cause a lot of anxiety and stress on the body, both physically and mentally. Anxiety comes from pain, fear of disfigurement, surgery, and the long healing process.

An article was published in the Journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries about a study performed in 2001. The study compared the role hypnosis played on badly burned victims to the role stress reducing strategies played in relieving pain related to dressing changes and anxiety.

The study involved thirty participants who had been burned over 10-25% of their body. These patients had been severely burned and required a minimum of a 14 day stay at a hospital. The patients were randomly placed into two different groups. One group received hypnosis and the other received stress reducing strategies. They received treatment on days 8 and 10 after they were admitted to the hospital.

In addition to the two treatments, all participants used the visual analogue scale to record their anxiety, pain, pain control, and satisfaction. Their scores were gathered every other day throughout the treatment.

The researchers studied the visual analogue scale scores. The results showed that in relation to anxiety, those who received the hypnosis treatment had much lower anxiety scores than those who received just the stress reducing strategies. In general, the scores were better in the hypnosis group.

This study showed that hypnosis has many benefits for burn patients. Hypnosis intervention can help reduce anxiety in relation to burns. Both hypnosis and stress reducing strategies showed to be beneficial in helping control pain and anxiety in relation to dressing changes in burn patients.