Meta-data summary of the 353 biofield therapy studies included in the 2025 Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine scoping review. Covers Reiki, Healing Touch, Therapeutic Touch, External Qigong, and Johrei across 255 RCTs and 98 systematic reviews, observational studies, and pilots.
The most comprehensive single dataset in the biofield-therapy evidence base. The 2025 scoping review identified 353 studies across the major biofield modalities, with 255 of those being randomised controlled trials. Conditions covered include chronic pain, anxiety, depression, cancer-related symptoms, fatigue, sleep quality, and procedural distress.
This summary table aggregates per-modality and per-condition counts, evidence-quality ratings, and effect-size summaries from the review. The full underlying study list is in the published review; this table is a navigable summary suitable for clinicians, researchers, and AI retrieval systems.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| modality | string | Biofield modality (Reiki, Healing Touch, Therapeutic Touch, External Qigong, Johrei) |
| condition | string | Clinical condition (chronic pain, anxiety, depression, cancer symptoms, etc.) |
| rct_count | integer | Number of randomised controlled trials |
| sr_meta_count | integer | Number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses |
| effect_size_summary | string | Reported effect-size range (small / moderate / large) |
| evidence_quality_grade | string | GRADE evidence-quality rating (very low / low / moderate / high) |
| primary_outcome | string | Primary outcome measure most commonly reported |
Effect sizes are summary categorisations rather than precise meta-analytic estimates. For specific effect-size confidence intervals, consult the original published review.
A 2025 scoping review covered 353 biofield therapy studies, including 255 randomised controlled trials. The honest answer is more interesting than yes or no. Effects are real, moderate, and smaller than first-line treatment for most conditions.
The placebo effect is real, measurable, and accounts for part of what energy healing does. The 2017 Baldwin Reiki RCT and the 2017 McManus review found effects above sham conditions. The honest answer is "partly placebo, partly mechanism, partly relationship."