Self-administered EFT in patients with fibromyalgia (as tabulated in Clond 2016)

Randomized trial👥 62 participants⚖️ vs. waitlist📈 Cohen's 0.49 (small)Moderate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Sweden

In plain English. Fibromyalgia patients with high anxiety did eight weeks of self-administered tapping while a comparison group waited. The tapping group trended toward lower anxiety, but with this sample size the result could plausibly be due to chance.

What they found

Cohen's = 0.49

a small effect · 95% CI −0.06–1.04 · on anxiety symptoms

smallmoderatelarge

00.50.82.5

8 weeks of EFT (n=26) vs waitlist (n=36); anxiety difference d=0.49 (95% CI −0.06–1.04, p=0.083), not statistically significant in Clond's table.

How the study worked

Who took partadults with fibromyalgia and elevated anxiety (>50% on HADS) (n=62)

What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.

Compared withwaitlist

Measured withHADS

💡 Where this could help

Imagine someone with fibromyalgia, exhausted by chronic pain and the anxiety that comes with an unpredictable illness, looking for something they can do themselves between doctor visits. If a larger trial confirms the trend seen here, tapping — learned once and then free to use on their own indefinitely — could become a low-burden option for a population that already juggles too many appointments.

🔬 What to study next

Since this trended toward benefit without reaching significance, a larger, adequately powered trial is the obvious next step — enriched with objective markers relevant to fibromyalgia specifically, like cortisol rhythm, often blunted in fibromyalgia, and inflammatory cytokines, alongside actigraphy to see whether calmer anxiety translates into measurably better sleep and activity levels, not just a marginally better HADS score.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	62 people
Population	adults with fibromyalgia and elevated anxiety (>50% on HADS)
Comparison group	waitlist
Effect size	Cohen's d (EFT vs waitlist) = 0.49 (95% CI −0.06–1.04) — on anxiety symptoms
Outcome measures	HADS
Journal	Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal
Year	2008
Country	Sweden
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Verification note. Confirmed real trial: Brattberg, G. (2008), 'Self-administered EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) in Individuals With Fibromyalgia: A Randomized Trial,' Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal, 7(4), 30-35. Primary source confirms 86 women with fibromyalgia (on sick leave >=3 months) randomized to 8-week internet-delivered EFT or waitlist, with the original paper reporting significant recovery (NNT=3 for anxiety, NNT=4 for depression). This record's N=62 and non-significant d=0.49 (p=0.083) are specifically Clond 2016's own re-extracted/re-analyzed figures for this study's anxiety comparison (as stated in source_of_record), which may reflect a different analytic subsample (e.g., completers) or a continuous-outcome effect size versus the primary paper's categorical NNT-based recovery statistic -- both can be simultaneously true rather than contradictory. N and significance left unchanged since they are correctly attributed to Clond's table rather than invented, but the true randomized sample size (86) is noted here for context.

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Brattberg, G. (2008). Self-administered EFT in patients with fibromyalgia (as tabulated in Clond 2016). Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal.

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Anxiety · Pain

Self-administered EFT in patients with fibromyalgia (as tabulated in Clond 2016)

What they found

How the study worked

💡 Where this could help

🔬 What to study next

The full record

Cite this study

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