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setting. The shorter Stanford Clinical Scale
for Adults and the Stanford Clinical Scale for
Children were designed for clinical application.
24,25
Other validated scales in clinical use
include the Children’s Hypnotic Susceptibility
Scale,
26
the Hypnotic Induction Profile,
27
and
the Creative Imagination Scale.
28
This last
scale is quick to administer, requires no induction,
and assesses sensory imagination.
There is significant overlap in the hypnosis
literature with relaxation techniques, in particular
PMR, which also includes elements of
‘
induction’ and ‘suggestion.’ Furthermore, research
suggests that patients may respond differently
to the same intervention depending
on what the intervention is called.
29
A recently published systematic review into
the efficacy of hypnosis in the reduction of
procedural pain and distress in children with
cancer
30
concluded that evidence to date is
not robust enough to recommend hypnosis
in best-practice guidelines for procedural pain
in pediatric cancer management. However, the
authors suggested that larger-scale, appropriately
controlled trials were justified.
This review suffers from certain limitations.
In particular, although the reviewers critically
appraised study design, they made no comment
on the relevance of outcome measures