The effect of therapeutic touch on sleep quality and anxiety in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

This study was conducted to determine the effect of therapeutic touch on sleep quality and anxiety in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The sample of the study consisted of patients who were diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Chest Diseases Clinic of Abant İzzet Baysal University Izzet Baysal Training and Research Hospital between March 2018 and March 2019 and were willing to participate in the study. The study was carried out with a total of 100 individuals assigned to the groups (experiment & control) by simple computer aided randomization. In the experimental group, in addition to routine nursing care, three sessions of therapeutic touch for 10 minutes each for three consecutive days and research scales were administered once a day. In addition to routine nursing care, only research scales were administered to the control group. Data were collected by Personal Information Form, Richard Campbell Sleep Scale and State Anxiety Scale. Descriptive statistics were used for the evaluation of the data, two-way analysis of variance for repeated measurements and t-test between independent groups. After therapeutic touch, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference between the anxiety levels of the patients in the experimental and control groups, and that the anxiety levels of the patients in the experimental group were lower than the control group (F=22.492; p=0.0001). Similarly, after the therapeutic touch, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean sleep score of the patients in the experimental and control groups, and the sleep quality of the patients in the experimental group was higher than the control group (F=184.699; p=0.0001). According to these results, it can be said that therapeutic touch decreases anxiety level and improves sleep quality in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmoner disease.