Background:Therapeutic touch (TT), healing touch (HT) and Reiki therapy (RT) are commonly used complementary therapies used in routine practice of healthcare and its delivery. Objective: To perform an integrative review of evidence and provide a literature update on the role of touch and Reiki therapy in relieving pain. Methods: A systematic review was done using search terms ‘TT, HT and RT’ and ‘pain’ was done in PubMed, CINAHL and Google scholar to identify English studies, which were scrutinized through their title, abstract and full text, and then included for data extraction and descriptive synthesis into specialty-based, disease-based and populationbased studies of TT, HT and RT. Independent search was performed by two testers and disagreements were solved by consensus in presence of third tester. Results: Of the total list of 23 included studies, there were two specialty-specific studies (oncology=1, critical care=1), 13 disease-specific studies (cancer=4, fibromyalgia=1, degenerative arthritis=1, chronic pain=1, burns=1, headache=1, phantom limb=1, pain=1, spinal cord injury=2), three populationspecific studies (elderly people=3) and five procedurespecific studies (colonoscopy=1, post-surgical=2, Csection= 1, hysterectomy=1). Conclusion: There was limited evidence yet sufficient information that supported use of therapeutic touch and Reiki as an adjunctive treatment for pain relief. There is need for qualitative studies in evaluation and pragmatic studies of intervention using TT, HT or RT.

Keywords: Pain management; Complementary

therapies; Therapeutic touch; Touch therapy; Healing

touch; Reiki therapy.