Hypnosis for the control of HIV/AIDS-related pain

This intensive case study used an A-B time-series analysis design to examine whether 5 adult patients with various AIDS-related pain symptoms benefited from a hypnosis-based pain management approach. The 3 dependent variables in this study were: (a) self-ratings of the severity of pain, (b) self-ratings of the percentage of time spent in pain, and (c) amount of p.r.n. pain medication taken. Data were collected over a period of 12 weeks, including a 1-week baseline period and an 11-week treatment period. Autoregressive integrated moving-average (ARIMA) models were used to determine the effects of the hypnotic intervention over and above autoregressive components in the data. All 5 patients showed significant improvement on at least 1 of the 3 dependent variables as a result of the hypnotic intervention. Four of the 5 patients reported using significantly less pain medication during the treatment phase.