Effect of therapeutic touch on patients' anxiety before coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Background: Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is very traumatic and makes patients very nervous. Since it is a main task of nurses to improve patients' comfort and safety, this study investigated the effect of therapeutic touch in cardiovascular patients' anxiety before CABG surgery. Methods: In a controlled clinical trail study the simple random sampling was used to select 44 patients from two separated lists of random numbers of women and men among the patients waiting to undergo CABG surgery at Shiraz Namazi Hospital in 2006. Data was collected using the Spielberger's Anxiety Inventory. In the case group, therapeutic touch was performed by the researcher for 20 minutes and the state anxiety test was taken before and after the therapeutic touch session by the research assistant. In the control group the anxiety was measured twice with 20 minutes gap in between, without any intervention. Data were analyzed using student t-test, paired t-test, and descriptive tests via SPSS software. Results: Results showed a significant difference between the mean of anxiety before and after therapeutic touch in the case group (p < 0.001); but there was no significant difference in anxiety mean in the control group. It was a significant difference between the mean of anxiety of the two groups of case and control (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Therapeutic touch is a safe and effective intervention to reduce the anxiety of patients. This technique is very simple, inexpensive, feasible, and applicable in all health centers and hospitals and even in patients’ residences.