A Randomized-controlled Clinical Trial of Brief Postoperative Hypnosis Intervention as Multimodal Analgesia After Major Abdominal Surgery in the ERAS Protocol

The primary objective of the present study is to evaluate the efficacy of hypnosis as an adjunct to the standard of care pain management program on postoperative pain compared to the standard ERAS program. Our hypothesis is that hypnosis, as part of a multi-modal analgesic management plan, will lead to decreased levels of pain compared to standard of care.

A secondary hypothesis is that better controlled pain will lead to enhanced recovery, in terms of post-operative incidence of complications, physical comfort and independence, psychological and emotional state and length of stay.

This study is an open label randomized controlled trial with two arms, comparing hypnosis as adjunctive therapy vs. standard of care. It is a monocentric study and will take place at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), a teaching hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland. It represents a collaboration between the Service of Visceral Surgery and the Center of Integrative and Complementary Medicine.

Participants will be recruited before a planned surgery, as well as in the post-surgical setting. They will be screened by the study team to ensure they fulfil the inclusion criteria. If eligible and after informed consent is obtained, an assessment of the cognitive function will be performed (cf. Chapter 4: study population). All included participants will then be randomized in a 2:1 proportion to the "Hypnosis (H)" group or the "Standard of Care (SOC)" group.

After major abdominal surgery, all participants will benefit from a standard ERAS recovery program. The ERAS protocol involves multimodal pain management with medications, interventional pain therapy as needed, and psychological support if needed.