LAUSR

OBJECTIVE Hypnosis can reduce pain and anxiety in surgical patients. This study aimed to demonstrate that implementing self-hypnosis in the setting of lung transplantation could improve patients' pain and quality of life. DESIGN A randomized, single-center study. SETTING Foch University Hospital, Suresnes, France. PARTICIPANTS The participants were patients aged 15 years or older who needed a double-lung transplant. Patients were excluded if they participated in only 1 learning self-hypnosis session before transplantation. INTERVENTIONS Patients were included at the time of their final evaluation before inscription on the waiting list. They were taught self-hypnosis at this time and were asked to perform it by themselves before and after transplantation, as frequently as possible. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The main outcome of the study was self-reported pain 1 month after lung transplantation. Secondary outcomes were self-reported pain, anxiety, coping, catastrophism, and self-reported quality of life evaluated at their registration, 7 days and 1 and 4 months after the transplantation. Seventy-eight patients were included, but only 28 patients in the control group and 33 in the self-hypnosis group were evaluated at the fourth postoperative month. Practice of self-hypnosis was high before transplantation (76.6%), lower after, from 32.3% in the intensive care unit to 51.6% during the last 3 months of the study. Group-time interactions were not statistically significant whatever the concerned outcome, especially pain score at 1 month (p = 0.16). CONCLUSION Implementation of self-hypnosis is possible, but the study failed to demonstrate an improvement in patients' experience, perhaps due to the variable compliance with the technique.