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

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