THE EFFECT OF THERAPEUTIC TOUCH ON PAIN RELIEF IN PATIENTS WITH CANCER

Pain is a common and devastating syndrome of cancer affecting patients’ lives probably even more than the cancer itself. There are several studies which have assessed the efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions on cancer pain relief; however, the results have been inconsistent. One of the non-pharmacological interventions is healing touch. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was whether therapeutic touch can have an effect on cancer pain relief, and whether it is a safe technique or it has side effects A systematic literature review was performed to answer the above questions. The literature search was conducted on Ovid, Elsevier, PubMed, Google scholar, and CINAHL databases between 1980 and 2013. 503 research articles were found. These articles were reviewed and after reading the abstracts, 12 relevant articles were selected. From among these articles the ones containing clinical trial, quasi experimental, case-control and cohort studies were selected (N=6). Two clinical trials, one quasi experimental, two cohort and one case-control study were found which was performed on 415 patients with cancer. Therapeutic touch seems to be helpful in controlling pain in patients with cancer. The studies did not report any side effects for therapeutic touch; therefore, this technique seems to be safe.