Hypnosis in 53 Children With Anxiety Disorders, Nocturnal Enuresis, or Insomnia

Abstract

Background: We present results of a prospective long-term study of 53 children treated consecutively with hypnotherapy.

Study Design: Children were treated for anxiety, nocturnal enuresis, or insomnia. Long-term (mean of 25.4 months) follow-up was performed.

Results: Of the 20 children with anxiety disorder, 55% had good-to-excellent long-term results, rating a 4 (good) to 5 (excellent) on a scale of 1 to 5. Seventeen children were treated for nocturnal enuresis and 59% had good/excellent rating for long-term results. The 16 children with insomnia had long-term good/excellent long-term effectiveness of 37.5%. No parent or child reported any adverse effect.

Conclusion: In this pilot study, hypnotherapy was performed by a professionally trained nurse practitioner. The use of hypnosis was safe and moderately helpful, particularly for anxiety disorder or nocturnal enuresis. Although results of this pilot study showed modest effectiveness, fair to poor re-visit compliance and poor compliance with at-home, self-hypnosis practice, reduced the ability to effectively rate our implementation of this treatment modality.




Int J Clin Pediatr. 2013;2(2):61-67
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/ijcp104w