Conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial on Patients With Mild to Moderate Depression Using the Complementary Therapy of Pranic Healing: The Process and Challenges

Abstract

Integrating complementary healing and alternative medicine into conventional treatment modalities is an anticipated idea. This was an effort to study the effect of pranic healing along with pharmacotherapy in mild-to-moderately depressed patients in a clinical setting. Given the nature of the treatment modality, choosing randomized controlled trials as the research design was of utmost importance, ensuring the application of stringent methodology owing to fewer biases. While the study was being carried out, there were also several practical challenges the team had to face. This case discusses these elaborately and further poses some questions to ponder on for further learning.