Tabatabaee, A., Tafreshi, M.Z., Rassouli, M., Aledavood, S.A., AlaviMajd, H., & Farahmand, S.K. (2016). Effect of therapeutic touch on pain related parameters in patients with cancer: A randomized clinical trial. Materia Socio-Medica, 28, 220–223.
The purpose was to evaluate the effects of therapeutic touch (TT) for pain management.
Patients were randomly assigned to TT, placebo, or control groups. TT was provided by a trained therapist in a private area every three days for seven sessions. In the placebo group, hands were placed around the body in a sham procedure. The control group received usual care. TT and sham procedure took 10-15 minutes.
PHASE OF CARE: Transition phase after active treatment
Three-group sham-controlled randomized clinical trial
Brief Pain Inventory
Only pain interference was reported. No information was provided on pain severity. After the first TT session, there were no significant differences between groups in pain interference results. After session 7, those in the TT group showed lower pain interference for activity (p = 0.001), mood (p = 0.001), walking ability (p = 0.001), relationships with other people (p = 0.001), and sleep (p = 0.001).
TT may be helpful for pain management in patients with cancer and managing sleep disturbance related to pain.
TT is a low-risk intervention that may be beneficial for some patients in managing pain and reducing the impact of pain on sleep. This study had multiple limitations. Further well-designed research in effectiveness of TT for varied types of pain is needed.