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Clinicians often consider prescribing various mind-body therapies as adjuncts or substitutes for opioids in patients with chronic pain. In this meta-analysis, researchers explored the effectiveness of six such therapies — meditation, hypnosis, therapeutic suggestion (without hypnosis), guided imagery, relaxation, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) — in 60 randomized trials with 6400 participants. All participants were taking opioids for procedural, burn, cancer, or other chronic pain conditions.
Moderate-to-large improvements in pain were seen with meditation, hypnosis, CBT, and therapeutic suggestion, and the first three also were associated with reductions in opioid use. No benefit was seen for relaxation therapy or guided imagery.