NCT00079534

Distant Healing for HIV/AIDS

Distant Healing Efforts for AIDS by Nurses and "Healers"

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 150 (planned)
• Sponsor: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) · NIH
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine whether individuals praying at a distance (also known as "Distant Healing") can positively affect the health of people with HIV/AIDS.

Detailed description

Significant numbers of people with HIV/AIDS seek spiritual or "psychic" treatment. Distant healing could potentially be of benefit to large numbers of HIV/AIDS patients, as it is widely available and requires no travel or other activity on the part of the patient. However, the treatment can be costly and has not yet been proven effective in a controlled clinical trial. This study will evaluate the efficacy of distant healing in patients with HIV/AIDS. Participants in this study will be randomly assigned to either the distant healing group or a control group. All participants will have hour-long study visits at entry and Months 6 and 12. At study visits, participants will complete a demographic questionnaire, self-report health and symptom inventory, quality of life assessment, and profile of mood states. Blood will be drawn at each study visit.

Conditions

• HIV Infections
• AIDS

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Non-local/distant healing or prayer

Timeline

• Start date: 2000-12-01
• Completion: 2003-12-01
• First posted: 2004-03-10
• Last updated: 2006-08-18

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States