PREVENT
Psychological interventions before and after
surgery in women with breast cancer
Every year, several thousand Norwegian women undergo surgery for breast cancer.
Almost half of them will suffer from pain and fatigue for a long time after surgery.
There are currently no effective ways to prevent such late effects, and we want to do something about this.
Can a short psychological treatment before and after surgery prevent the development of long-term pain and fatigue after surgery in women with breast cancer?
It has previously been shown that a short hypnosis treatment just before surgery had a great effect on pain and fatigue immediately after surgery in American women. In our project, we will investigate whether the same hypnosis treatment has the same effect in Norwegian women with breast cancer, and further - whether hypnosis together with a psychological follow-up after surgery can prevent the development of long-term pain and fatigue and contribute to better function and quality of life.
We will investigate whether the treatments have an effect on job function, the need for medication and whether it affects biomarkers of stress. In this way, women undergoing breast cancer surgery will receive a more holistic treatment that also includes the psychological aspects and needs that we know are central to the development of late effects. In this way, we believe that women with breast cancer will be even better cared for than is currently the case.
Hypnosis to reduce pain, stress and fatigue
Listen to an excerpt of a hypnosis session:
*Be aware that the sample is in Norwegian
Web-based therapy after surgery
Welcome to your digital processing
PREVENT protocol
In this article you can read how we aimed to develop and test an easily implementable strategy of preventing chronic pain and fatigue after breast cancer surgery.
The SURGE Model of Chronic Post-surgical pain
How do stress and expectations affect the development of long-term pain after surgery?
Medical hypnosis
What are the attitudes of the Norwegian population towards hypnosis, and what is the experience of receiving hypnosis before breast cancer surgery?
Want to know more
about the project?
Silje talks about the project at God morgen Norge.
Blog post at Oslo University Hospital about what medical hypnosis is and why it works for pain.
Blog post at Science Norway about hypnosis to help breast cancer patients cope better with surgery