The Effect of Hand Massage Applied Before Cataract Surgery on Anxiety, Surgical Fear, Pain and Physiological Parameters

ABSTRACT Objective: The research was conducted as a prospective randomized controlled experimental study to determine the effect of hand massage applied before cataract surgery on anxiety, surgical fear, pain and physiological parameters of patients. Study design: The sample of the study consisted of 60 patients, 30 experimental and 30 control, who had cataract surgery and met the study criteria in Eye Operating Room of a tertiary hospital between 24 December 2020 and 31 May 2021. Ethics committee, institutional permission and participant consent were obtained in this study, and data were collected using the descriptive characteristics form, Physiological Parameters Observation Form (PPOF), VAS-Anxiety, Surgical Fear Scale (SFS), and VAS-Pain scale. In the study, individuals in the experimental group were given hand massage for 10 minutes before cataract surgery. Before and after hand massage, PPOF, VAS-Anxiety and SFS were measured and recorded. In addition, PPOF, VAS-Anxiety and VAS-Pain were measured and recorded again at the postoperative 30th minute. Pearson chi-square, Shapiro Wilk, Levene test, Two-Way Analysis of Variance in Repeated Measurements, Mann-Whitney U test were used in the analysis of the data.