Table 3.
Questions for the participants about subjective feelings regarding healing and CAM in general.
| Variable | Active Healing | Sham Healing | AH versus SH | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | Median | Q1 | Q3 | N | Median | Q1 | Q3 | P-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 |
1The 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 (Q1, Q3) ranges. Analysed using Wilcoxon scores: a two-group comparison.