Distant Healing for HIV/AIDS

August 16, 2006 updated by: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Distant Healing Efforts for AIDS by Nurses and "Healers"

The purpose of this study is to determine whether individuals praying at a distance (also known as "Distant Healing") can positively affect the health of people with HIV/AIDS.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Significant numbers of people with HIV/AIDS seek spiritual or "psychic" treatment. Distant healing could potentially be of benefit to large numbers of HIV/AIDS patients, as it is widely available and requires no travel or other activity on the part of the patient. However, the treatment can be costly and has not yet been proven effective in a controlled clinical trial. This study will evaluate the efficacy of distant healing in patients with HIV/AIDS.

Participants in this study will be randomly assigned to either the distant healing group or a control group. All participants will have hour-long study visits at entry and Months 6 and 12. At study visits, participants will complete a demographic questionnaire, self-report health and symptom inventory, quality of life assessment, and profile of mood states. Blood will be drawn at each study visit.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment

150

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94115
        • California Pacific Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 65 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion criteria

  • HIV infection
  • History of a CD4 cell count less than 200 cells/mm3
  • Stable antiretroviral regimen
  • English-speaking

Exclusion criteria

  • Inability or unwillingness to fill out questionnaires
  • History of non-HIV related life-threatening disease

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: DOUBLE

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Donald Abrams, MD, University of California, San Francisco
  • Study Director: Jerome J. Stone, MA, RN, California Pacific Medical Center

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

December 1, 2000

Study Completion

December 1, 2003

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 9, 2004

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 9, 2004

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

March 10, 2004

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

August 18, 2006

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 16, 2006

Last Verified

August 1, 2006

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01AT000485-01 (NIH)

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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