Manage Your Workingnegative Thoughts Through Hypnosis (Hypnosis)

Manage Your Negative Thoughts: Stress, Anxiety Management Through Hypnosis in Medical Trainees

Medical doctor generally are exposed to several risks and pressures, it is not a case that several meta-analyses have shown high stress and anxiety level in these workers. Stress management represents a very important topic. Being a doctor means dealing with continous effort and arousal management to provide the best treatment through executive functions capacity. This is particularly true for younger medical trainees; that have also to learn how to deal with failure and the curve of learning. Hypnosis has been shown to be very effective at modulating executive functions and sympathovagal balance, with large effect in post traumatic stress disease (PTSD), anxiety and executive function modulation. Therefore, this study aim to investigate if hypnosis could be beneficial among medical trainees for managing negative thoughts related to work.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Stress; Stress Disorders
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Experimental: Hypnosis and negative memory; Behavioral: Sham Comparator: Control group

Detailed Description

Stress and anxiety are very important issues in medical training. Several methods have been applied, from psychotherapy to biofeedback, but the physiological component usually have been dismissed. Training medical trainees to manage their physiological activity through hypnosis can probably transfer practical results, i.e. increased wellbeing, modulation of the working energy and the transfer from planning to properly execution. To obtain this results after a basal evaluation of physiological data (HR; Heart rate, HRV, Heart Rate Variability, EDA; Electrodermal activity, and SCr; Skin conductance responses) stress and of anxiety levels, , with PSS-10 scale, VAS stress, VAS anxiety and Tower of London test ( TOL-R), participants will recollect a negative memory for 3 minutes to monitor their response. After that a brief session of hypnosis will be performed with positive memories being recollected while all physiological data will be monitored. Then participants will be subjected again to the negative memory task end at the end of the session the same test of the basal evaluation will be carried out.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 26
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Italy
  • Italy
    • Padua, Italy, Italy, 35126
      • Istituto di Anestesia e Rianimazione
  • PD
    • Padua, PD, Italy, 35126
      • University of Padova

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• age > 18 years old,
• being medical doctor or at first year of residency in Anesthesiology
• obtained written informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Neurological issues affecting stress responses
• Diabetes
• Cardiovascular conditions (i.e., hypertension, orthostatic hypotension etc)
• Being under psychiatric medications
• Psychological or psychiatric diseases

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Hypnosis and negative memory (n. 26); T0) basal evaluation of physiological data T1) evaluation of physiological data after recollecting a negative memory for 3 minutes T2) evaluation of physiological data after that a brief session of hypnosis (performed with positive memories) T3) evaluation of physiological data recolling, for the second time, the negative memory.	Behavioral: Experimental: Hypnosis and negative memory; Arm Description: T0) basal evaluation of physiological data T1) evaluation of physiological data after recollecting a negative memory for 3 minutes T2) evaluation of physiological data after that a brief session of hypnosis (performed with positive memories) T3) evaluation of physiological data recolling, for the second time, the negative memory.
Sham Comparator: Control group (n. 23); Active control group con breath-focused attention. Allocation: Non-randomized	Behavioral: Sham Comparator: Control group; Arm Description: Active control group con breath-focused attention. Allocation: Non-randomized

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Evaluation of the variations of the tonic and phasic component of the Electrodermal Activity (EDA,microSiemens) and Skin conductance response comparing pre and post-hypnosis (SCr/min)	Evaluation of the variations of the tonic and phasic component of the Electrodermal Activity (EDA,microSiemens) and Skin conductance response comparing pre and post-hypnosis (SCr/min)	T0) Within 3 minutes from electrodes application (at baseline), T1) within 3minute after a negative memory (w/o hypnosis), T2) within 3minutes after a positive memory, T3) within 3minutes after recalling the negative memory (after hypnosis application)
Evaluation of the executive performance comparing pre- and post-hypnosis through Tower of London-Revised (TOL-R) (number of correct responses)	Evaluation of the executive performance comparing pre- and post-hypnosis through Tower of London-Revised (TOL-R) (number of correct responses)	Within 3 minutes from the first negative memory (without hypnosis) and then, within 3 minutes from the negative memory (with hypnosis)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Evaluation of the variations of psychological stress response to a negative memory related to work between pre and post hypnosis on a scale from 0 to 10	Evaluation of the variations of psychological stress response to a negative memory related to work between pre and post hypnosis on a scale from 0 to 10	Within 3 minutes from the first negative memory (without hypnosis) and then, within 3 minutes from the negative memory (with hypnosis)
Evaluation of the Heart rate variability (HRV) comparing pre and post-hypnosis (ms)	Evaluation of the Heart rate variability (HRV) comparing pre and post-hypnosis (ms)	T0) Within 3 minutes from electrodes application (at baseline), T1) within 3minute after a negative memory (w/o hypnosis), T2) within 3minutes after a positive memory, T3) within 3minutes after recalling the negative memory (after hypnosis application)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Padova
• Collaborators: Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 6, 2025
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): April 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 29, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 10, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): January 16, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 18, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 13, 2026
• Last Verified: February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: disorder; stress; hypnosis
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Trauma and Stressor Related Disorders; Mental Disorders; Pathologic Processes; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Disease; Stress Disorders, Traumatic
• Other Study ID Numbers: IPNOSIS

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No