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. 2025 Mar 10;15(1):8266.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-91267-7.

Training healthcare professionals in hypnosis-derived communication to mitigate procedural pain in children

Serge Sultan  1   2   3   4 , Michel Duval  5   6 , Jennifer Aramideh  7   6 , Beáta Bőthe  7   8 , Amy Latendresse  7   6 , Margot Bedu  7   6 , Ariane Lévesque  7   6 , Émélie Rondeau  6 , Sylvie Le May  6   9 , Ahmed Moussa  5   6   10 , Claude Julie Bourque  5 , Argerie Tsimicalis  11 , Marie-Joëlle Doré Bergeron  5   6 , Évelyne D Trottier  5   6 , Jocelyn Gravel  5   6 , David Ogez  12   13
Affiliations

Training healthcare professionals in hypnosis-derived communication to mitigate procedural pain in children

Serge Sultan et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

How professionals communicate during medical procedures may have a significant impact on children and adolescents' pain. Rel@x is a manualized training program designed to develop hypnosis-derived communication skills to mitigate childhood pain and distress. The study aimed to evaluate if this training was associated with an improvement and maintenance in communication skills over time, and measure associations between changes and participants' characteristics. A 9-hour training in hypnosis-derived communication was offered to 78 volunteer healthcare professionals from a tertiary pediatric hospital, and 58 participated in the evaluative study. Participants were evaluated at baseline, immediately after training, and 5 months later (39 ± 10 yrs, 52 women, 54 nurses). We used a video-recorded standardized simulation protocol of blood draw and coded the participants' interactions with the pre-validated Sainte-Justine Hypnotic Communication Assessment Scale (SJ-HCAS) assessing relational, technical, and total skills. We modeled pre-post-follow-up changes over time with latent growth curve models. Satisfaction with Rel@x was consistently excellent (97%). Across the 3 domains, we observed significant improvements of total (+ 61%, 95% CI 53-69%), relational (+ 27%, 95% CI 20-34%), and technical skills (+ 124%, 95% CI 08-140%). Post-training competence levels were 73-91% across domains. A large proportion of acquired skills were maintained at 5 months (55-75%) suggesting a significant effect of the training. Sensitivity analyses confirmed these results (best-case/worst-case skill maintenance ratio: 59-79%/49-73%). Larger improvements in technical skills were associated with younger age and lower baseline skills of participants. The Rel@x training is associated with improved skills in hypnotic communication post-training and at follow-up. This simulation study paves the way for future efficacy studies to examine the effect of hypnotic communication on real patients' pain and distress.

Keywords: Distress; Hypnosis-derived communication; Paediatrics; Procedural pain; Training evaluation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Ethical approval was granted by the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Ethics Board (#2019–2205) and the research was conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants provided written informed consent. Consent to publish: Informed Consent for the publication of the individual image in Fig. 2 was obtained from the two individuals.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart of study participants.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Illustration of the simulation situation.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Visual presentation of the change in outcome variables over time.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Frequencies of each skill from the Sainte-Justine-Hypnotic Communication Assessment Scale across timepoints. Note: ***p < 0.01 (Cochrane Q test)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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