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Burn patients often have to endure intense pain during their regular dressing changes. Burn care procedures typically include washing wound sites, debridement, topical application of medication and dressing change - all requiring necessary stimulation of highly sensitized nociceptors on the periphery of burn injury areas. Complete analgesia through administration of narcotic analgesics is rarely attained; thus, psychological therapy for pain management may have a role as an adjunct to opioid therapy. The primary objective of this study was to alleviate procedural pain (in terms of its sensory and affective components) by using Rapid Induction Analgesia, or RIA (Barber, 1977) - a technique for hypnotic analgesia. An independent groups and within-subjects design was used in three separate studies to investigate the effect of RIA on pain perception. All but Study (3) were conducted in the laboratory on healthy volunteer subjects. The purpose of Study (1) was to estimate the extent to which RIA can increase pain threshold and pain tolerance on mild pain, experimentally induced by capsaicin - the active compound in hot peppers. Upon application of this substance on 30 volunteer subjects, capsaicin induced hyperalgesia and increased nociceptor sensitivity to otherwise non-painful stimulation, thus simulating actual burn pain. Primary hyperalgesia at the locus of injury and secondary hyperalgesia around the wound periphery are common physiological responses to burn injuries. A common objective of Study (1) and Study (2) was also to test the differential effects of RIA on primary and secondary hyperalgesia, which are typical physiological characteristics of nociceptor reaction to noxious stimulation. Cutaneous nociceptive fibres are sensitized to low levels of stimulation which, under normal conditions, would not cause pain. This enhanced sensitivity results in a reduction in pain threshold and tolerance. Thus, for Study (1) and Study (2) it was predicted that RIA would alt more...

Ooi, C. S., Rooney, R. M., Roberts, C., Kane, R. T., Wright, B., & Chatzisarantis, N. (2016). The Efficacy of a Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for War-Affected Young Migrants Living in Australia: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. Available here more...