THE EFFECT OF THERAPEUTIC TOUCH ON THE EXPERIENCE OF ACUTE PAIN IN POSTOPERATIVE PATIENTS.
Contributors: New York University.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 133
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Therapeutic Touch on the experience of acute pain in postoperative patients. Pain was viewed as a subjective experience and function of interrelated physiological and psychological events. Studies demonstrate that Therapeutic Touch has the potential to significantly decrease anxiety and facilitate relaxation. Studies demonstrate that treatments which facilitate relaxation have the potential to significantly decrease acute pain. It was hypothesized that there would be a greater decrease in posttest acute pain scores in subjects treated by Therapeutic Touch than subjects treated by Mimic Treatment. To set an internal standard by which the effectiveness of the study treatments could be judged, the difference in posttest acute pain scores between subjects treated by Therapeutic Touch and subjects treated by Standard Treatment was determined. Therapeutic Touch was viewed as a nursing treatment. The theoretical rationale was provided by the Rogerian nursing conceptual model and supported by contemporary scientific literature.

A pretest-posttest parallel control group design was used. The sample consisted of 108 male and female patients who had undergone elective abdominal and pelvic surgery. When requesting pain relief, at least 24 hours after recovery from anesthesia and at least three hours after receiving analgesic medication, subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental group receiving Therapeutic Touch, a single-blind placebo control group receiving Mimic Treatment and a standard control group receiving Standard Treatment. Pain intensity was measured prior to treatment and one hour following treatment by a Visual Analogue Scale. Testing was done by multiple regression analysis and the Tukey HSD comparison technique.

Although a decrease was found in posttest acute pain scores of subjects treated by Therapeutic Touch compared with subjects treated by Mimic Treatment, it was not great enough to be significant at the .05 level. The hypothesis, therefore, was not supported. Standard Treatment set a sensitive internal standard but was significantly more effective than Therapeutic Touch. Findings are discussed in light of the very narrow margin of failure to support the hypothesis and ancillary analyses which suggest short and longer term effectiveness of the study treatments.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-03, Section: B, page: 0795.

Thesis (PH.D.)--NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 1985.

School code: 0146.