Training nurses in basic hypno-analgesia techniques to reduce procedural distress and pain in children: A feasibility trial

Background: Children with cancer experience pain and distress due to their illness and frequent medical procedures. Hypno-analgesia techniques effectively prevent and allow pain and distress management in children without any toxicity; however, they remain underutilized because of their cost and the shortage of trained hypnotherapists. We hypothesize that pediatric oncology nurses will change their practice after a four-day training in basic hypno-analgesia techniques, leading to a decrease in procedural distress and pain in their patients. Methods/Design: Six nurses from a pediatric hematology-oncology daycare clinic will be enrolled in this interventional pilot study. The intervention will be a four-day training session in basic hypno-analgesia techniques under the supervision of a certified hypnotherapist. Nurses and patients will be video recorded and evaluated during venipunctures (pre- and post-intervention). Nurses' mastery of hypno-analgesia techniques will be measured by two external evaluators who quantitatively assess their practice performance on the videotapes. Patients' distress and pain measures will include self- and parent-reported visual analog scale and Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability scale's assessments by two external evaluators on video recordings. The primary outcome will be nurses' technique mastery and the main secondary outcome will be the change in patients' self-reported distress after the intervention. Discussion: We expect that a four-day training of nurses in basic hypno-analgesia techniques will reduce procedural distress and pain in their patients, thereby opening the way to larger clinical trials in various pediatric settings.