Adjunctive self-hypnotic relaxation for outpatient medical procedures: A prospective randomized trial with women undergoing large core breast biopsy

Medical procedures in outpatient settings have limited options of managing pain and anxiety pharmacologically. We therefore assessed whether this can be achieved by adjunct self-hypnotic relaxation in a common and particularly anxiety provoking procedure. Two hundred and thirty-six women referred for large core needle breast biopsy to an urban tertiary university-affiliated medical center were prospectively randomized to receive standard care (n = 76), structured empathic attention (n = 82), or self-hypnotic relaxation (n = 78) during their procedures. Patients’ self-ratings at 10 min-intervals of pain and anxiety on 0–10 verbal analog scales with 0 = no pain/anxiety at all, 10 = worst pain/anxiety possible, were compared in an ordinal logistic regression model. Women’s anxiety increased significantly in the standard group (logit slope = 0.18, p < 0.001), did not change in the empathy group (slope = −0.04, p = 0.45), and decreased significantly in the hypnosis group (slope = −0.27, p < 0.001). Pain increased significantly in all three groups (logit slopes: standard care = 0.53, empathy = 0.37, hypnosis = 0.34; all p < 0.001) though less steeply with hypnosis and empathy than standard care (p = 0.024 and p = 0.018, respectively). Room time and cost were not significantly different in an univariate ANOVA despite hypnosis and empathy requiring an additional professional: 46 min/$161 for standard care, 43 min/$163 for empathy, and 39 min/$152 for hypnosis. We conclude that, while both structured empathy and hypnosis decrease procedural pain and anxiety, hypnosis provides more powerful anxiety relief without undue cost and thus appears attractive for outpatient pain management.