The Effect of Therapeutic Touch on Exam Anxiety

Dokuz Eylül University (DEU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Test Anxiety

Treatments: Behavioral: therapeutic touch

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06279117

2023/9/8

Details and patient eligibility

About

Aim: This study was planned to determine the effect of therapeutic touch applied to nursing students on test anxiety.

Method: Students who met the inclusion criteria were divided into therapeutic touch and control groups using the randomization method. After the groups were determined, the students filled out the Introductory Information Form and the State Exam Anxiety Scale. 30 minutes before the exam, therapeutic touch was applied to each of the students, who were divided into groups, for 20 minutes. No application was made to the control group, and they were told to wait in the classroom where the group was waiting as they wished.Immediately after the application was completed, the scale was re-applied to both groups.

Full description

Test anxiety is a condition that has cognitive, emotional and physiological aspects and causes unwanted and disturbing emotions during the exam. It can inhibit the mental perception needed to do well on an exam, as well as the clear thinking skills and memory needed to study effectively.The person may feel anxious, worthless or disorganized, experience rapid heartbeat, headaches and stress; They may compare themselves with their peers due to test anxiety. Test anxiety can hinder educational success and negatively impact students' skill development and academic performance. Nursing education is a highly stressful process that includes theoretical and practical learning and teaching experiences. This situation further increases students' anxiety levels. Studies have found that nursing students' test anxiety is higher than other university students.I t is known that many complementary methods are used to reduce anxiety. Therapeutic touch, which is one of the energy-based practices, is one of them.

When the literature is examined, it can be seen that therapeutic touch has been studied on symptoms such as anxiety, fatigue, sleep quality, comfort and pain in different sample groups, but there is no study on test anxiety.Therefore, this study was planned to determine the effect of therapeutic touch applied to nursing students on test anxiety.

Enrollment: 46 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 30 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• To be over 18 years of age,
• To know Turkish and to agree to participate in the research
• Being a fourth year nursing student
• Not having received any energy therapy (reiki, therapeutic touch) before

Exclusion criteria

• Presence of existing psychiatric illness,
• Using anxiolytic and antidepressant medications

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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46 participants in 2 patient groups

Therapeutic touch group

Experimental group

Description:

Individuals who undergo therapeutic touch will receive therapeutic touch for 20 minutes 30 minutes before the exam.

Treatment:

Behavioral: therapeutic touch

control group

No Intervention group

Description:

No treatment will be performed on individuals in the control group.