• Neslihan Söylemez and Meral Özkan.
• Department of Surgical Nursing, Health Sciences Faculty, Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Osmaniye, Turkey. Electronic address: neslihan.percins@gmail.com.
• Pain Manag Nurs. 2024 Nov 11.

PurposeSubjective methods should be used to evaluate pain. It is important to know how pain affects vital signs and brain oxygenation. This study aimed to determine the effects of expressive touch and music applied after lumbar disc herniation surgery on pain, vital signs, and brain oxygenation.DesignThis was a convergent, parallel, mixed-methods study utilizing randomized controlled trials and semi-structured qualitative interviews.MethodsWith power analysis, 132 (44: expressive touch, 44: music, 44: control) patients were included in the study. Thirty-two patients were included in the qualitative research sample. Expressive touch and music interventions were repeated 3 times. Pain, vital signs, and brain oxygenation values were recorded before and after the interventions. Qualitative data were collected after the interventions.ResultsIt was determined that expressive touch and music significantly decreased the patients' pain levels compared to the control group (X2: 67.118), (p < .001). It was found that expressive touch and music created a significant difference in respiration (X2: 15.289), blood pressure (X2: 8.754-8.706), saturation (X2: 47.953), and brain oxygenation (X2: 31.473-37.110), (p < .001). Music was found to be more effective than expressive touch on pain and brain oxygenation. The interventions relaxed and distracted the patients.ConclusionsIt was found that expressive touch and music were effective in reducing pain level, keeping vital signs within physiological limits, and increasing brain oxygenation. Further studies are needed to examine the effects of other methods used in postoperative pain management on brain oxygenation.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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