THE EFFECT OF SELF HYPNOSIS ON SEVERITY AND QUALITY OF PAIN IN WOMEN WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: A RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIAL

Pain is one of the common and detrimental clinical feature of multiple sclerosis (MS). Hypnotherapy is one of the effective psychological approaches. Hypnosis is a safe, effective and non-invasive method that can alleviate both emotional and affective aspects of pain. It seems necessary to conduct the present study with the aim of effect of self-hypnosis on degree of pain in patients with MS, in terms of severity and quality. This clinical trial was carried out on 60 patients with MS in Urmia University of Medical Sciences. The tools were general health questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), numerical rating scale (severity of pain), McGill pain questionnaire (quality of pain), and record of pain pills. After initial assessments, patients were randomly assigned into two groups of intervention and control. Education of Self-Hypnosis for the intervention group was performed within 6 half-hour sessions, with no intervention for controls. Then change of pain severity and quality and amount of pain pills were evaluated after one month. Data were analyzed by SPSS using of independent t and Chi-square tests. Self-hypnosis was significantly effective in terms of severity and quality of pain in patients with MS (p<0.05) as mean score of pain severity decreased from 5.63±1.01 to 2.70±1.07 and, score of pain quality decreased from 1.50±0.47 to 0.93±0.29 in the intervention group. This effect was maintained four weeks post-intervention (p<0.05). Amount of pain pills had a decreasing trend. Changes were not significant in controls (p>0.05). Results of this study showed that self-hypnosis is effective in decreasing pain severity and alleviating its quality in female patients with MS.