The Rate of Adverse Events Related to Hypnosis During Clinical Trials

The rate of adverse events associated with medical and psychological interventions is important to regulators who oversee clinical research. There have been relatively few reports on the frequency of adverse events associated with hypnosis. The current article collected data from a publically available register (ClinicalTrials.gov) on adverse events reported during clinical trials that used hypnosis. The rate of serious adverse events likely attributable to hypnosis was 0%. The rate of other adverse events was 0.47%. This rate was similar to previous reports. However, several trials in the register that used hypnosis did not report adverse event data. For the trials that did report adverse events, there was substantial variability in reporting. Another limitation was the lack of generalizability as all studies included in the analysis used hypnosis to treat side-effects related to medical conditions or procedures as opposed to psychiatric conditions. Future clinical trials using hypnosis should use more precise assessment methods to report adverse events, especially when tested in samples with mental health disorders.