IMPLICIT PROCESSING AND THERAPEUTIC SUGGESTION DURING BALANCED ANESTHESIA

The effect of therapeutic suggestion - implicit processing during bala nced anaesthesia was studied in 70 female patients scheduled for elect ive breast surgery. The patients were randomly allocated to listen to a message with reassuring information focused on minimising postoperat ive nausea and vomiting, or just a blank tape during surgery. Occurren ce of nausea and vomiting was studied during the postoperative period. No patient recalled any explicit memories during the peroperative per iod. No major differences were observed in the number of patients who experienced nausea or vomiting during the 24 hour observation period. The patients exposed to positive suggestion did, however, have a lower frequency of recall for nausea and vomiting compared to those just li stening to the blank tape. We did not observe any major effect of pero perative suggestion for postoperative nausea and vomiting. However, we cannot rule out some implicit processing during balanced anaesthesia.