• Madalina Boitor, Géraldine Martorella, Christine Maheu, Andréa Maria Laizner, and Céline Gélinas.
• Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University, 680 Sherbrooke West, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
• Pain Med. 2018 Dec 1; 19 (12): 2556-2569.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of hand massage on the pain and anxiety of the cardiac surgery critically ill.DesignA three-arm randomized controlled trial.SettingThis study was conducted in a medical-surgical intensive care unit in Canada.SubjectsAdult patients who underwent elective cardiac surgery, who were able to speak French/English and to self-report symptoms, without a high risk of postoperative complications were eligible.MethodsPatients were randomly allocated to standard care plus either two 20-minute hand massages (experimental), two 20-minute hand holdings (active control), or two 20-minute rest periods (passive control/standard care). Pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, anxiety, muscle tension, and vital signs were evaluated before, after, and 30 minutes later for each intervention.ResultsFrom the 83 patients recruited, 60 were randomized (20 massage, 19 hand holding, 21 standard care). After controlling for baseline scores, the massage group reported significantly lower pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and anxiety for the first data collection set compared with both hand holding and standard care (analysis of covariance, P < 0.02), with an average decrease of two points on a 0-10 scale. No statistically significant differences were noted between hand holding and standard care for any of the symptoms. Similar results were observed for the second data collection set (N = 43). Patients had decreased muscle tension post massage. Vital signs did not differ significantly between groups.ConclusionsFindings suggest that a 20-minute hand massage in addition to routine postoperative pain management can concomitantly reduce pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and anxiety by two points on average on a 0-10 scale.

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