Anticipatory nausea and vomiting: A review of psychological interventions

Although a cure for cancer continues to elude scientists, modern chemotherapy treatments can typically reduce or reverse the rate of disease progression and can often lead to restored health. However, chemotherapy can also produce severe, sometimes intolerable, side effects. A particularly distressing and aversive side effect that develops in 25 to 32% of all chemotherapy patients is anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV). Fortunately, research investigating the prevalence, etiology, predictors, and treatment of ANV has flourished since the early 1980s, and there has been significant progress in understanding this phenomenon. Although antiemetic medications appear to be ineffective in controlling ANV, several psychological interventions, including progressive muscle relaxation training, systematic desensitization, hypnosis, attentional distraction, and stimulus control have produced promising results. The present paper is a review of these interventions.