Spiritual Healing in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Exploratory Single Centre, Parallel-Group, Double-Blind, Three-Arm, Randomised, Sham-Controlled Trial
Table 3
Questions for the participants about subjective feelings regarding healing and CAM in general.
Variable
Active Healing
Sham Healing
AH versus SH
Median
Median
-value
Baseline
Have you tried complementary treatment?1
32
88
2
100
32
85
4
96
0.508
Have you tried healing?
32
3
0
46
32
3
0
20
0.800
What are your expectations of participation in this trial?
32
57
46
86
32
47
18
90
0.150
Do you believe complementary treatment is good for arthritis?
32
61
49
80
32
56
32
88
0.265
Do you believe healing is good for arthritis?
32
59
50
73
32
48
22
88
0.184
After intervention (week 21)
How did you feel about participating in this project?1
25
100.0
80.0
100.0
24
94.5
58.0
100.0
0.453
Do you think that you were treated by the healer?
25
19.0
0.0
46.0
24
16.0
0.5
47.5
0.880
Do you believe that healing is good for arthritis?
29
50.0
0.0
100.0
27
37.0
0.0
69.0
0.396
Will you use other kinds of complementary treatment?
24
87.5
25.5
100.0
24
47.0
1.0
87.0
0.103
Will you proceed to seek treatment by a healer?
24
34.5
0.0
53.0
23
11.0
0.0
71.0
0.991
Follow-up (week 29)
How did you feel about participating in this project?1
27
100.0
66.0
100.0
30
100.0
90.0
100.0
0.422
Do you think that you were treated by the healer?
27
2.0
0.0
46.0
30
15.5
2.0
35.0
0.176
Do you believe that healing is good for arthritis?
27
55.0
7.0
100.0
32
48.5
0.0
94.0
0.363
Will you use other kinds of complementary treatment?
26
99.5
41.0
100.0
30
69.5
17.0
100.0
0.162
Will you proceed to seek treatment by a healer?
23
24.0
0.0
68.0
30
22.0
0.0
62.0
0.841
The answers were given on a 100 mm visual analogue scale on which 0 was defined as “no, not at all” or “fully dissatisfied” and 100 as “yes, definitely” or “fully satisfied.” Values are given as medians with interquartile (, ) ranges. Analysed using Wilcoxon scores: a two-group comparison.
