Brief Hypnosis Intervention for Palliative Care Patients and Their Relatives. (HypnoPal)

Vaud University Hospital Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hypnosis; Home; Palliative Care

Treatments: Behavioral: Hypnosis

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05300126

2021-02193

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study objective is to assess the feasibility of hypnosis sessions for palliative care patients in home care and of their relatives. The intervention consists of four 15-minute hypnosis sessions for the patients and for one family member, taking place at the patient's home. Recordings will be given to practice self-hypnosis.

Full description

The primary outcome of this study is to assess the feasibility of a home based hypnosis intervention, targeting the management of symptoms (e.g. pain, anxiety) of palliative care patients and the reinforcement of a positive skill for their relatives (e.g. acceptance, relaxation), as well as the development of their respective self-hypnosis practice.

The two secondary outcomes are: i) to understand what the needs of palliative care patients and their relatives are in relation to complementary medicine and ii) to understand the process of integration of complementary medicine into usual care by looking at how this takes place for the participants to the intervention as well as for other palliative care patients who resort to using complementary medicine (not limited to hypnosis).

This is a mixed-methods study combining quantitative and qualitative data in a convergent design. The convergent design, derived from the pragmatic paradigm, involves the independent collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. The results are then merged in order to compare and/or combine them and thus provide a broader understanding of the issue being studied.

For the intervention, participants will be recruited by a community mobile palliative care team. They will be screened by the study team to ensure they fulfil the inclusion criteria. If eligible and after informed consent is obtained, an assessment of the cognitive function will be performed. The patients will then recruit one of their relatives for participation to the study.

For the secondary outcomes, participants will be healthcare professionals working in palliative care setting and using complementary medicine in their daily practice and also patients using complementary medicine but who do not participate at the interventional part of this study.

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria :

• adults ≥18 years
• followed by a mobile palliative care team
• expressed symptom such as: pain, dyspnea, sleep disturbance or anxiety at a score of ≥ 3/10 at inclusion
• interest in managing symptoms with hypnosis

Exclusion Criteria :

• inability to communicate in French without a translator
• severe cognitive impairment
• severe hearing impairment
• acute psychiatric or somatic decompensation.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 1 patient group

Usual care

Experimental group

Description:

No hypnosis session are proposed

Treatment:

Behavioral: Hypnosis