Effect of tactile touch on stress in patients with myocardial infarction

Nowadays, myocardial infarction is one of the cardiovascular life threatening diseases. After myocardial infarction, many patients experience psychological reactions such as stress. These emotional reactions can lead to increased treatment costs, mortality; delay of recovery and cardiac ischemia progression. The present study was done with the aim of “studying the effect of tactile touch on stress level in patients with myocardial infarction”. This quasi-experimental study was performed on 80 patients with myocardial infarction that were hospitalized for the first time in Zahra Heart Center in Shiraz during 2011 and 2012. Patients were randomly in two groups of intervention and control. For patients in the intervention group tactile touch was performed five days, it was half an hour every day. Questionnaires DASS-21 was used for data collection. Data were analyzed through SPSS version 15 and by using descriptive statistics and analytic statistical tests. Stress in patients with myocardial infarction after tactile touch period had a significant decrease (p<0.001) compared with that before intervention. Also, after tactile touch, Significant difference between intervention and control group was observed (p<0.001). This result reflects the positive impact of this method in reducing stress in these patients. Using tactile touch can be effective in reducing stress in patient with myocardial infarction. Training nurses in using this method can be effective in reducing these patients’ stress.