The Tapping Evidence Base
Test Anxiety & Students

The effect of emotional freedom techniques on test anxiety in Iranian Paramedical students: a randomized controlled trial study

Azzizadeh Forouzi, M., Taebi, M., Samarehfekri, A., Rashidipour, N. · Annals of Medicine and Surgery · 2024

Randomized trial👥 60 participants⚖️ vs. no interventionModerate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Iran
In plain English. Sixty nursing and paramedical students in Iran were split into a group that took six weekly online tapping sessions and a group that got no special help before exams. The tapping group's test-anxiety scores came down substantially more than the untreated group's by the end. It's a modest-sized study in one country's student population, but the online, low-cost delivery format is notable for how easily it could scale to other students.

What they found

60
people took part

60 students (30 per group) were randomized to 6 weekly 45-minute online EFT sessions or a no-intervention control; mean exam anxiety dropped to 50.88 in the intervention group versus 65.36 in the control group post-intervention (p<0.001).

How the study worked

Who took partIranian nursing, midwifery, and paramedical students (2nd to 8th semester) (n=60)
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 withtest anxiety questionnaire

💡 Where this could help

Picture a nursing student anywhere in the world, studying for a high-stakes exam over video call because in-person mental health support isn't available on campus. If this pattern of relief from online, remote-delivered tapping holds up, it could become part of standard exam-prep support offered to students in under-resourced universities worldwide — taught once over video, then practiced by the student alone afterward, at a fraction of the cost of ongoing individual counseling.

🔬 What to study next

Since anxiety was measured only by questionnaire, the next step is pairing that with something harder to fake around exam day — cortisol or heart-rate variability — and checking whether calmer students actually perform better on the exam itself, not just feel calmer beforehand. It would also be worth testing a single-session or app-guided version against the full six-week course, since knowing the minimum effective dose is what would let this scale to students who can't commit to six weeks of sessions.

The full record

DesignRandomized trial
Participants60 people
PopulationIranian nursing, midwifery, and paramedical students (2nd to 8th semester)
Comparison groupno intervention
Outcome measurestest anxiety questionnaire
JournalAnnals of Medicine and Surgery
Year2024
CountryIran
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeStudy / trial
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Azzizadeh Forouzi, M., Taebi, M., Samarehfekri, A., & Rashidipour, N. (2024). The effect of emotional freedom techniques on test anxiety in Iranian Paramedical students: a randomized controlled trial study. Annals of Medicine and Surgery. https://doi.org/10.1097/MS9.0000000000002023

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 Test Anxiety & Students

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Test Anxiety & Students 60 participants WHAT THEY FOUND 60 students (30 per group) were randomizedto 6 weekly 45-minute online EFT sessions ora no-intervention control… Randomized trial · 60 participants Azzizadeh Forouzi · 2024 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com