Therapeutic Touch, Its Effectiveness on Surgical Incision Site Pain

Therapeutic touch has been shown to decrease patients anxiety levels and increase their pain tolerance levels when other more mainstream therapies have not been completely effective. 'Therapeutic touch is a process by which energy is transmitted from one person to another for the purpose of potentiating the healing process of one who is ill or injured.' (Heidt, 1981; Krieger, 1979; Lionberger, 1985; Randolph, 1984; Kramer, 1990). In my capacity as a nursing student on a medical- surgical unit, I have noticed an increase in pain medication requests among patients with incision site pain and a minimal use of alternative therapies for this pain management. With the use of therapeutic touch nurses can regain a closeness with patients and also have a direct effect on their pain level. Therefore the purpose of this study will be to determine if therapeutic touch is an effective intervention for patients experiencing surgical incision site pain within the first forty-eight hours after surgery.…