A Review of the Effects of Guided Imagery on Cancer Patients with Pain

Over half of the patients diagnosed with cancer suffer from pain. Often, analgesic medications do not completely relieve the pain and alternative measures are sought out for relief. Mind—body techniques such as guided imagery (GI) have been thought to be helpful and used as an adjuvant to pain relief. This article evaluates and summarizes studies performed from 2001 to 2008, which investigated the use of GI for relief of cancer pain. Electronic databases were searched with the keywords cancer pain, visualization, and guided imagery, for any studies utilizing GI with an outcome measure of pain. Five studies included pain as either a primary or a secondary outcome measure. In three of those, pain intensity and pain-related distress decreased in the GI intervention versus control. There is inconsistency in the methodological qualities of these trials and further research is necessary to provide better evidence for the use of GI in cancer pain.