Objective: Emergency-department (ED) staff may experience psychologic distress due to the stressful nature of their work. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this distress. Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) tapping, a somatic psychophysiologic intervention combining vibratory acupressure with elements of cognitive-behavioral and exposure therapies, can reduce psychologic distress. This study tested the short-term effect of 10-minute EFT tapping on the psychologic distress of pediatric ED staff responding to COVID-19.
Materials and methods: During the COVID-19 pandemic, diverse staff in the pediatric ED of a New York City teaching hospital participated in this single-group study. A licensed creative arts therapist led participants in 10-minute EFT tapping sessions. A self-report questionnaire with 7 items based on the Trauma Exposure Response framework was administered immediately pre- and postintervention. Standardized mean differences between both timepoints were calculated.
Results: There were statistically significant reductions for 6 of the 7 items studied, including stress (3.32-2.14), obsessive and intrusive thoughts (2.50-1.85), feelings of pressure (3.20-2.17), loneliness (1.84-1.44), and emotional and physical pain (2.28-1.70); all P < 0.001. No significant changes in professional satisfaction were reported following the intervention.
Conclusions: Despite the limitations of a single-arm study design, a 10-minute brief EFT tapping session was a promising way to reduce short-term psychologic distress in pediatric ED health care workers. Future studies, including rigorous randomized controlled trials, are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of brief EFT tapping interventions in other settings.
Keywords: COVID-19; Emotional Freedom Techniques; acupressure; emergency department; stress disorders.
Copyright 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.