The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on Death Anxiety and Cancer-Related Anxiety in Patients Undergoing...

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of emotional freedom techniques (EFT) on death anxiety in patients experiencing postsurgery cancer-related anxiety. A total of 120 oncological surgical patients were randomly allocated to either the intervention group (n = 60) or the control group (n = 60). Data were collected from February 2025 to September 2025 as a randomized controlled trial. While EFT (once a day, for 3 days) was applied to the patients in the intervention group in addition to the clinical procedure, the control group only followed the clinical procedure without any intervention. Following EFT, participants in the intervention group showed statistically significant reductions in both cancer-related anxiety and death anxiety scores (p < 0.001). The decrease in subjective distress scores in the intervention group after EFT was found to be significant (p < 0.001). When the intervention and control groups were compared based on their final test scores, the intervention group had lower levels of cancer-related anxiety, death anxiety, and subjective distress (p < 0.05). Clinical EFT application demonstrated immediate postintervention efficacy in reducing death anxiety, cancer-related anxiety, and subjective distress. However, due to the absence of a long-term follow-up period, these findings reflect acute psychological stabilization.