Congress Abstracts 2005

62

USE OF THERAPEUTIC TOUCH TO DECREASE PATIENT ANXIETY AND TO IMPROVE PATIENT RESPONSE. Mary Thompson, RN, BSN, OCN^®, and Cassandra Orem, St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, MD.

This simple performance improvement initiative is an attempt to reconnect the nursing staff with the very essence of nursing and to focus on the provision of comfort and care in a high tech environment through the art of touch. This study demonstrated that the intentional use of therapeutic Comfort Holds had a positive and measureable impact on patients’ anxiety and related symptoms.

An awareness of touch as a tool to convey caring and reduce anxiety is an important step in increasing understanding of touch as a prescriptive tool in easing the psychosocial and physical distress associated with illness. The simple research design consists of a control group of new chemotherapy patients seen in the infusion center prior to training the nursing staff on the administration of Comfort Holds. The experimental group is composed of patients seen after staff training has been completed. The statistical testing methods are a simple comparison of the average score for each group obtained from a linear analog self reported anxiety scale.

Nine Comfort Holds passive touch techniques were taught to the nursing staff by a certified massage therapist, each nurse utilizing the techniques she was most comfortable with during the teaching session prior to the first chemotherapy administration.

Patients completed a self-assessment before and after teaching by the nurse, with and without employment of Comfort Holds. The self-assessment included four areas, tenseness, anxiety, nausea and pain to be rated on a 0-10 scale. When no Comfort Holds were employed, 62% of the patients reported a reduction in stress levels, with an average reduction of 47%. Utilizing Comfort Holds, 100% of the patients reported a reduction in stress, averaging 69% lower.

Utilizing Comfort Holds during patient education was simple, non-intrusive for the patient and well within the staff nurses personal comfort levels. The use of Comfort Holds demonstrated a significant decrease in anxiety levels for all the patients. These techniques are readily employed by all levels of staff and may be used on all patients.