The use and meaning of touch in caring for patients with cancer.

Although touch and touching are complex phenomena that constitute an important aspect of nursing practice, the ways in which nurses use touch are still poorly understood. In this study, patterns of nurse-patient touch were examined by analyzing videotapes of nurses caring for patients with cancer and audiotapes of unstructured interviews with patients and selected nurses. Using the techniques of qualitative ethology, five types of touch were identified and described: comforting, connecting, working, orienting, and social. These types of touch are comparable to the two major kinds of nurse-patient touch previously identified in the literature: task-related touch and affective touch. However, detailed, qualitative descriptions of the five types of touch, the variations in associated verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and the associated meanings provide more comprehensive descriptions than previously have been available. In particular, the use of connecting, orienting, and social touch have not been well-recognized or described in the literature. Awareness of the types and meanings of touch affords nurses the opportunity to increase the therapeutic value of touch as a nursing intervention.