Reiki for the treatment of fibromyalgia: a randomized controlled trial.
OBJECTIVE
Fibromyalgia is a common, chronic pain condition for which patients frequently use complementary and alternative medicine, including Reiki. Our objective was to determine whether Reiki is beneficial as an adjunctive fibromyalgia treatment.


METHODS
This was a factorial designed, randomized, sham-controlled trial in which participants, data collection staff, and data analysts were blinded to treatment group.


METHODS
The study setting was private medical offices in the Seattle, Washington metropolitan area.


METHODS
The subjects were comprised 100 adults with fibromyalgia.


METHODS
Four (4) groups received twice-weekly treatment for 8 weeks by either a Reiki master or actor randomized to use direct touch or no touch (distant therapy).


METHODS
The primary outcome was subjective pain as measured by visual analog scale at weeks 4, 8, and 20 (3 months following end of treatment). Secondary outcomes were physical and mental functioning, medication use, and health provider visits. Participant blinding and adverse effects were ascertained by self-report. Improvement between groups was examined in an intention-to-treat analysis.


RESULTS
Neither Reiki nor touch had any effect on pain or any of the secondary outcomes. All outcome measures were nearly identical among the 4 treatment groups during the course of the trial.


CONCLUSIONS
Neither Reiki nor touch improved the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Energy medicine modalities such as Reiki should be rigorously studied before being recommended to patients with chronic pain symptoms.
Assefi
Nassim
N
Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Bogart
Andy
A
Goldberg
Jack
J
Buchwald
Dedra
D
D000328:Adult; D005221:Fatigue / Q000209:etiology / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005356:Fibromyalgia / Q000150:complications* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology; D059408:Pain Management; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D019124:Therapeutic Touch / Q000379:methods*; D014110:Touch; D016896:Treatment Outcome