The effect of Therapeutic Touch on pre exam anxiety in Kerman University of Medical Sciences Students

Anxiety is vague and excruciating distress which is usually experienced in some extent by students before taking exams. Reduction of this status by use of safe methods such as complementary medicine can lead to intensification of self confidence and improvement of learner’s educational function. This single group clinical trial study was done on students of Kerman Medical University to determine the effect of therapeutic touch on the anxiety level of them before taking test. First, to assertion the sample size a pilot study was done and the sample size determines to be 37 participants. In the data collection phase, the standard Beck Scale Anxiety questionnaire was used. On the beginning, learner’s anxiety level was assessed at the night before the testing session. Then after doing the therapeutic touch, by use of the same questionnaire their anxiety level was scored. The scores gained by questionnaire before and after the therapeutic touch were average and this data were analyzed by, One Way ANOVA, and pair T-test.Demographic information such as; age, type of course, pre-knowledge of therapeutic touch, prior usage of therapeutic touch, and acceptance of therapeutic touch as a method had no significant relationship with anxiety reduction after the intervention. After intervention 29.7% students feel weightless and 24.3% of them feel relax. But meanwhile, there was a significant difference between the intervention and average anxiety level (p value<0.001).In attention to significant relationship between average anxiety numbers before and after the intervention, probably therapeutic touch can be reducing anxiety level of participants.