Complementary Therapies and Supporting Care Practices: Descriptive Analysis of Nursing Theses Conducted in Türkiye between the Years of 2010-2020

Background: The quality and quantity of nursing studies on Complementary Therapy and Supportive Care (CTSC) practices are proof of the progress of that field as well as the steps taken towards scientificization.

Aim: In the study, it was aimed to examine the nursing theses written in Türkiye on CTSC practices from demographic, thematic and methodological perspectives.

Methods: The data were collected with the document analysis technique, one of the qualitative study methods. Between January 25 and April 8, 2021, two researchers checked the nursing departments on the website of the National Thesis Center of the Turkish Council of Higher Education and examined 6855 theses between the years 2010 and 2020. The titles and abstracts of the theses were scanned with keywords and 392 theses, which were determined to be made in the field of CTSC practices, were classified according to the prepared schedule.

Results: Most of the theses were written in the last five years, and it was determined that most (20.9%) were written in the year 2019. The theses of 60.2% are at the master’s level and 83.2% are experimental. The theses were mostly written in internal medicine nursing (26.0%) and were conducted on patients (60.2%). In the theses, surgical intervention (21.9%), cancer (15.1%) and invasive interventions (13.0%) were studied, and pain (32.5%) and anxiety (16.0%) were mostly considered in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the practices. The most used methods were music (21.7%), massage (17.6%), and aromatherapy (16.8%).

Conclusion: The number of theses applied to CTSC is increasing every year, and experimental methods are preferred. The scope of the study can be expanded by examining the articles on the subject in the national and international literature.