Perception of Touch in the Physiotherapist-Patient Relationship

The aim of the study was to find out how values and norms related to touch are perceived in the physiotherapist-patient relationship. 149 physiotherapists and 100 patients participated in the study. The questionnaire used in the survey was prepared in two versions, both containing the same 30 items describing the use of therapeutic touch from two perspectives. The respondents had to provide their answers on 6-point ordinal scales with the centre excluded. In our analyses we treated the applied research tool as a scale of fulfilment of touch-related norms in the case of therapists and, respectively, a scale of expectations of fulfilment of these norms in the case of patients. The reliability of the tool was checked with Cronbach’s α method. Factor analysis, Student’s t-test and one-way analysis of variance were used to develop the obtained results.

In a therapeutic situation, the surveyed patients expect most of all that touch will express care. Physiotherapists are driven mainly by their professional competence in applying touch. A comparison of the obtained results on a scale depicting the fulfilment of norms underlying therapeutic touch has shown that the level of patients’ expectations concerning physiotherapists’ use of touch in therapy situations is lower than the physiotherapists’ declared level of fulfilling norms and values connected with this situation. The gender and age of physiotherapists were not found to differentiate axiological and normative declarations related to touch. Patients with higher education and women tend to express much higher expectations with respect to touch therapy.