A study on the efficacy of touch therapy in pain relieve after cesarean section

Supporters of touch therapy claim it can treat and cure a wide variety of illnesses, including heart failure, diabetes and infections. The "theory" is that people who are ill have disturbed "energy fields," and that by moving trained hands over the patient's body (without contact), a touch therapist can detect malalignments and repattern energy fields to create "energy balance." In a quasi- experimental study, 30 subjects in 6 hours post cesarean section state were divided into therapeutic touch or placebo (speech induction) groups in a university hospital. In order to assess the pain, Visual Analog scale (VAS) was used, before and after intervention. The mean pain score decreased significantly only in the therapeutic touch group (50.66 to 39.53 p<0.01). In conclusion, it is recommended that therapeutic touch, as an attentive technique, can be used in pain relieve after cesarean section.