The effect of an online lecture on psychosocial cancer care providers' attitudes about hypnosis.

Hypnosis has been shown to be efficacious in the control of the symptoms and side effects of cancer and its treatment across all stages of the cancer continuum. Yet, hypnosis has generally failed to widely disseminate to clinical cancer settings, potentially due in part to provider attitudes about hypnosis. In a sample of 340 trainees (psychosocial cancer care providers), we tested the effects of a 12-minute online video hypnosis lecture on provider attitudes (using the Attitudes Toward Hypnosis Questionnaire). We hypothesized that viewing the online video would improve attitudes about hypnosis. Using a repeated measures design, total attitudes toward hypnosis improved following the lecture [(1,339) = 321.97, < .0001], as did all hypnosis attitude subscales. Older age and ethnicity (Latino/a) were associated with more positive attitudes across assessment points (s < .05). Those trainees without prior hypnosis experience had the most attitude improvement ( < .05). The results support the use of a brief, online hypnosis lecture to improve cancer care provider attitudes about hypnosis, and suggest a path forward to facilitate more widespread dissemination of hypnosis to cancer care.