Utilization of therapeutic touch in clients diagnosed with chronic pain

Chronic pain is one of the most pervasive and expensive health care problems in society today. Fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis are chronic disease states which currently have no cure. A common complaint among these patients is constant and unremitting pain, which often worsens with inactivity. At this time treatment for both disease processes is essentially palliative, supportive and aimed at symptom relief; A quasi experimental design was used to determine if there were any significant differences in pain perception between persons with FM or RA receiving therapeutic touch (TT) and a placebo treatment (PT). Sixty-one subjects served as their own control group. Using a vertical visual analogue scale, pain was measured pre- and post-treatment. It was noted that the data were skewed and had a bimodal distribution. Therefore, the nonparametric tests of Wilcoxon Ranks Test and the Chi Square 2 x 2 Test of Independence were done. The hypothesis, that patients diagnosed with FM and RA would demonstrate significant decreases in pain (p {dollar}<{dollar}.05) following TT when compared to PT, was not supported (p =.082).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1998

Author dc:creator

• Matonti, Rosa

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mary Koithan

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/892

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1891