Effect of Hypnotherapy in Alcohol Use Disorder Compared to Motivational Interviewing. A Randomised Controlled Trial

This study was designed as a parallel study, where two groups were compared: one receiving treatment as usual (motivational interviewing) and the intervention (hypnotherapy group). With difference in treatment effect as great as 40% we would have needed 46 participants to achieve p=0.05. We had initially planned to recruit as many as 50 individuals, but many were sceptical to the novel treatment. Four persons withdrew from the hypnotherapy group either before or after first treatment because of uncertainty. This did not affect randomization and they are not represented in the results.

Participants in the study were recruited from patients admitted to a six week long inpatient treatment programme at Vangseter Clinic in Norway in 2016. Only individuals who suffered from AUD were included in this study. The treatment programme consisted of the following elements: 5 hours of group therapy 5 days a week, a 2-3 day long family visit, where a family therapy session was also included, some obligatory group activities, like trips to museums or walks in nature, and lastly, informal activities, such as barbecues, watching movies together or discussions in the hall. All this was thought to contribute to the therapy of the patients. From the second week of the program the patients were expected to have one hour of additional individual therapy a week. It was conducted as motivational interviewing (MI), totaling five hours. MI is one of the most popular and effective modern treatments. As a brief intervention, MI appears to be at least as effective as, and possibly more effective than, other treatment methods. As an alternative to the MI sessions the patients enrolled in the study could receive five individual hour-long sessions of hypnotherapy.

Patients were informed about the study, were given time to consider, and if they volunteered to participate then signed a consent form. Thirty-one individuals, who took part in this randomized controlled trial (RCT), were assigned at random to receive either hypnotherapy (N=16) or to be in the control group (N=15).

At the beginning of the second week of treatment (baseline) all the participants were administered Mini International Neuro-psychiatric Interview (MINI) psychiatric interview to be able to diagnose mental problems other than AUD. Exclusion criteria were having psychotic episodes, a recent severe other psychiatric diagnosis or recent drug abuse other than alcohol.

In addition, all patients filled in the Alcohol Use Identification Test (AUDIT) and a Time-line-follow-back (TLFB) for registration of number of standardized alcohol units consumed and alcohol-related problems during the previous month. They also filled in the Hopkins Symptoms Check List (HSCL-25) to measure their level of mental distress. Mental distress was given as a global average of the HSCL-25 denoted Global Severity Index (GSI). The Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire was used to register traumatic life experiences. AUDIT, TLFB and HSCL-25 were re-administered one year later as a follow-up.