The effect of one touch modality on state anxiety during a hospital admission procedure

The problem of this study was to investigate the effect of one modality of touch, stationary touch, on the state anxiety of adult patients undergoing a hospital admission procedure. The study was conducted in a 505-Bed general hospital located in a highly populated metropolitan city in the southwestern part of the United States. The 50 subjects who participated in the study were admitted through the admissions office to two hospital floors and were not emergency admissions. Forty-seven of the 50 subjects were to have surgery; 42 were female, and 8 were male. Forty-eight percent of the sample were 31-40 years of age.

The design of the study was a pre-posttest control design involving accessible selection and random assignment. The statistical analysis employed was the analysis of covariance. Only the experimental group received the stationary touch; whereas, the control group was not touched. The pre- and posttest measurements were the STAI Form X-1 scores, systolic blood pressure, and pulse. It was hypothesized that there is no significant difference between the control and experimental groups in these variables. The hypotheses were supported at the .05 level of significance.

The findings did not agree with the theoretical framework; however, the touch was given only once. Perhaps different results would occur through repeated exposure to the touch.

The proposition was not statistically supported; however, the results of the additional analysis added some support to the proposition. In the additional analysis, the touch group had a greater number of subjects with a decrease in his/her anxiety score than the no-touch group and a lower number of subjects with increased anxiety scores. The postexperimental question indicated that stationary touch was the preferred modality for decreasing anxiety.