The effect of the emotional freedom technique on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) fear and anxiety levels of nurses working in the emergency department: A randomized controlled study

Randomized trial👥 84 participants⚖️ vs. no-treatment control (delayed EFT offered after study completion)Higher rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Turkey

In plain English. 84 emergency-room nurses in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic were randomly assigned to either an online-guided tapping session or no intervention. The nurses who tapped reported a real drop in their fear of COVID-19, their in-the-moment distress, and their immediate anxiety, while the untreated group barely changed. Their longer-running "trait" anxiety (a more stable personality-level measure) didn't shift significantly, so the benefit showed up mainly in acute, immediate anxiety rather than deeper baseline anxiety.

What they found

people took part

Fear of COVID-19 decreased by a mean of 4.58±2.47 in the EFT group versus 0.09±2.47 in control (p<0.001); SUD decreased 5.61±1.16 vs 0±1.15 (p<0.001); state anxiety decreased 8.82±7.26 vs 0.22±7.25 (p<0.001); trait anxiety change was not significant between groups (p=0.095).

How the study worked

Who took partEmergency department nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary hospital in Turkey (analyzed sample: 41 intervention, 43 control, after exclusions from an original 88 randomized) (n=84)

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

Compared withno-treatment control (delayed EFT offered after study completion)

Measured withSubjective Units of Disturbance (SUD), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI state/trait), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S)

💡 Where this could help

If brief guided tapping keeps cutting acute fear and distress this sharply for frontline healthcare workers, it could mean hospitals facing the next health crisis have a five-minute tool nurses can reach for between shifts — no appointment, no waiting list, available exactly when the fear spikes. Because it's self-administered, a nurse doesn't need a counselor physically present or on-call at 3am in the middle of a chaotic shift to use it.

🔬 What to study next

Given how sharply fear and distress dropped for these frontline nurses, a valuable next step would be adding physiological measures, cortisol, heart rate variability, or even brief EEG readings before and after a shift, to see whether a five-minute tapping session produces a measurable stress-system reset during active crisis work, not just a felt one. It would also be worth testing whether repeated use across a full pandemic wave prevents burnout from accumulating over months, rather than only easing single-session fear spikes.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	84 people
Population	Emergency department nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary hospital in Turkey (analyzed sample: 41 intervention, 43 control, after exclusions from an original 88 randomized)
Comparison group	no-treatment control (delayed EFT offered after study completion)
Outcome measures	Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI state/trait), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S)
Journal	Journal of Psychiatric Nursing (Psikiyatri Hemşireliği Dergisi)
Year	2022
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

Okut, G., Alpar, S. E., & Dönmez, E. (2022). The effect of the emotional freedom technique on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) fear and anxiety levels of nurses working in the emergency department: A randomized controlled study. Journal of Psychiatric Nursing (Psikiyatri Hemşireliği Dergisi). https://doi.org/10.14744/phd.2022.60948

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 Anxiety · Burnout & Work Stress · Trauma (other)