Pain Improvement After Healing Touch and Massage in Breast Cancer: an Observational Retrospective Study

Background Healing Touch (HT) and Oncology Massage (OM) are nonpharmacologic pain interventions, yet a comparative effectiveness study has not been conducted for pain in breast cancer. Purpose This breast cancer subgroup analysis compared the effectiveness of HT vs. OM on pain. Setting The research occurred at an outpatient setting at an academic hybrid, multi-site, community-based cancer institute and Department of Supportive Oncology across four regional locations. Participants Breast cancer outpatients along the cancer continuum who experienced routine clinical, nonexperimentally manipulated HT or OM. Research Design The study was an observational, retrospective, comparative effectiveness post hoc subanalysis of a larger dataset. Patients reporting pain < 2 were excluded. Pre- and posttherapy pain scores and differences were calculated. Logistic regression modeled posttherapy pain by modality, adjusting for pretherapy pain. The proportions experiencing ≥ 2-point (clinically significant) pain reduction were compared with chi-square tests. Intervention The study focused on the first session of either HT or OM. Main Outcome Measures Pre- and posttherapy pain (range: 0 = no pain to 10 = worst possible pain). Results A total of 407 patients reported pre- and posttherapy pain scores, comprised of 233 (57.3%) who received HT and 174 (42.8%) who received OM. Pretherapy mean pain was higher in HT (M=5.1, ± 2.3) than OM (M=4.3, ± 2.1) (p < .001); posttherapy mean pain remained higher in HT (M=2.7, ± 2.2) than OM (M=1.9, ± 1.7) (p < .001). Mean difference in pain reduction was 2.4 for both HT and OM. Both HT (p < .001) and OM (p < .001) were associated with reduced pain. Proportions of clinically significant pain reduction were similar (65.7% HT and 69.0% OM, p = .483). Modality was not associated with pain improvement (p = .072). Conclusions Both HT and OM were associated with clinically significant pain improvement. Future research should explore attitudes toward the modalities and potential influence of cancer stage and treatment status on modality self-selection.