Therapeutic Touch in Exercise Videos: A Randomized Experiment of the Impact on the Evaluation of Therapists' Competence and Viewers' Self-Reliance

Abstract

From a psychological health perspective, being physically touched is highly relevant throughout people's lives. Touch plays an important role in many contexts, such as in instructing movement exercises. Exercise videos have become a well-accepted format to support therapists in instructing movement exercises. In the study presented here we examined the impact of the use of therapeutic touch in exercise videos on people's evaluation of physiotherapists' competence and on their own self-reliance. In a between-group randomized experiment, 125 participants watched one of three videos that showed a physiotherapist who instructed a movement exercise to a patient. The physiotherapist touched the patient during the treatment (therapist-touch, TT), instructed the patient to use self-touch (ST), or provided only exercise instruction without physical touch (no-touch, NT). In the TT condition, the participants' perception was that the physiotherapist exhibited more professional competence. However, participants considered the movement exercise in this TT condition to have less potential for fostering their autonomy. Finally, participants in the ST condition had the biggest increase in perceived self-efficacy. The way of touching a patient in an exercise video influences the perception of the treatment. We conclude that therapeutic touch should be applied in exercise videos in a goal-oriented way: It seems appropriate to use ST if the aim is to strengthen viewers' self-reliance and to use TT to arouse trust in the competence of the therapist.

An Experimental Investigation of Supportive Tactile Communication During Esteem Support Conversations

“…For example, the results of Holmstrom and Burleson's (2011) initial test of the CETESM involved participants' thirdparty ratings of hypothetical verbal messages exchanged between two friends; the findings of that study are consistent with later research where study participants were the direct recipients of esteem support messages (see also Holmstrom et al, 2013Holmstrom et al, , 2021aHolmstrom et al, , b, 2023. Additionally, videotaped experimental studies are regularly used to assess observers' perceptions of the interactional and message outcomes of touch and other nonverbal behavior (e.g., Bientzle et al, 2019;Hall et al, 2001;Major & Heslin, 1982;Sekerdej et al, 2018). Employing videotaped interactions as stimuli in the present experiment also allows for control of other factors, such as the biological sex of the interactants, allowing us to isolate the variables of interest.…”

Observing Inter-Professional Videos: Impact of Collaboration Between Physicians and Psychologists on Attitude and Knowledge Acquisition

“…Videos are already widely used in health communication 22,23 and medical education, because they are an illustrative teaching format 24,25 and are effective for teaching procedural knowledge. 26,27 Recent findings indicate that video formats show great potential for the acquisition of inter-professional competences 28 and are considered to be relevant for inter-professional learning. This can be explained on the basis of Bandura's social learning theory, especially with regard to the fact that observational learning is suitable for the acquisition of social behavior.…”