The effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on nurses' stress, anxiety, and burnout levels during the COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized controlled trial

Randomized trial👥 80 participants⚖️ vs. no interventionModerate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Turkey

In plain English. Eighty nurses working in COVID-19 wards — under some of the highest stress conditions in healthcare — either did one brief guided tapping session online or received nothing extra. The nurses who tapped reported dramatically lower anxiety, distress, and burnout than those who didn't, all after a single session. This was a single-session, self-report study conducted during an extraordinary crisis period, so it speaks to fast relief in an acute high-stress setting rather than long-term burnout prevention.

What they found

people took part

80 nurses were randomized to a single brief online EFT session or no intervention; the EFT group had significantly lower anxiety (STAI 32.25 vs 64.43, p<0.001), lower distress (SUDS 2.85 vs 7.40, p<0.001), and lower burnout scores (2.48 vs 3.43, p<0.001) than the control group.

How the study worked

Who took partnurses working in a COVID-19 treatment unit at a Turkish university hospital (n=80)

What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.

Compared withno intervention

Measured withState-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS), burnout scale

💡 Where this could help

If a single guided session can produce this scale of relief for nurses in the highest-stress wards, it points toward hospitals being able to offer a brief reset between patients during the next crisis, reaching burned-out staff who have no time for a full therapy appointment. Because tapping is self-taught after that one session, a nurse could keep using it solo between patients on future shifts without needing the trainer, or anyone else, present again.

🔬 What to study next

A single brief session producing this much reported relief is worth checking against the body directly: does cortisol drop and heart-rate variability rise right after the session, and does that translate into better sleep that night, tracked by actigraphy rather than recall? Testing the same single-session format delivered through an app across an entire hospital, and following nurses through subsequent shifts rather than just once, would show whether this kind of rapid reset holds up as a real crisis-response tool rather than a one-off effect.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	80 people
Population	nurses working in a COVID-19 treatment unit at a Turkish university hospital
Comparison group	no intervention
Outcome measures	State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS), burnout scale
Journal	Explore (NY)
Year	2021
Country	Turkey
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Dincer, B., & Inangil, D. (2021). The effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on nurses' stress, anxiety, and burnout levels during the COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized controlled trial. Explore (NY). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2020.11.012

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Burnout & Work Stress