Academic Section Evaluation Research in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, University Medical Center Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
J Altern Complement Med. 2012 Jun;18(6):529-33. doi: 10.1089/acm.2011.0321.
In recent years, several clinical trials have assessed effects of distant healing. The basic question raised by these studies is whether a positive distant intention can be related to some outcome in a target person. There is a specific simple experimental setup that tests such a basic assumption. The task is to focus attention and to indicate unwanted mind wandering by a button press while at the same time a second remote person is either supporting this performance or not according to a randomized schedule. A meta-analysis was conducted to assess the overall effect of this experimental approach.
A systematic literature search yielded 11 eligible studies, with 576 single sessions and almost identical design, that were conducted on three different continents. Study parameters were extracted and combined with a random-effects model.
The model yielded an overall effect size of d=0.11 (p=0.03). Furthermore, there was a significant difference of the frequency of button presses between studies conducted in Indonesia and the Western hemisphere (p<0.001). Two (2) similar experimental setups applying electrodermal activity as dependent variable meta-analyzed earlier showed almost identical effect sizes. This can be considered as mutual validation of the three data sets.
The hypothesis of the positive effect of benevolent intentions is supported by the data presented. It is concluded that especially the intentional aspect common to all three different tasks may be responsible for these unorthodox findings. These finding may have implications for distant healing research and health care as well as for meditation performance.
近年来，多项临床试验评估了远程治疗的效果。这些研究提出的基本问题是，积极的远程意向是否能与目标个体的某些结果相关联。有一种特定的简单实验设置可检验这一基本假设。任务是集中注意力，并在每次出现不必要的走神时通过按按钮来表明，与此同时，另一个远程个体根据随机安排要么支持这一行为，要么不支持。进行了一项荟萃分析以评估这种实验方法的总体效果。
系统的文献检索产生了11项符合条件的研究，共576个单次疗程，且设计几乎相同，这些研究在三大洲开展。提取研究参数并结合随机效应模型。
该模型得出的总体效应量为d = 0.11（p = 0.03）。此外，在印度尼西亚和西半球开展的研究之间，按按钮的频率存在显著差异（p < 0.001）。之前对两项将皮肤电活动作为因变量的类似实验设置进行的荟萃分析显示出几乎相同的效应量。这可被视为对这三组数据的相互验证。
所呈现的数据支持善意意向具有积极效果这一假设。得出的结论是，尤其可能是所有这三项不同任务共有的意向方面导致了这些非传统的研究结果。这些发现可能对远程治疗研究、医疗保健以及冥想表现都有影响。
