Objectives:

To know the most used types of touch and understand their meanings for physical therapists working in a hospital environment, from the perspective of their feelings, attitudes and behaviors during care.

Materials and methods:

Qualitative case study conducted by physical therapists working at a hospital in Brazil. For data collection, participant observation and semi-structured interviews were used as techniques. Data were analyzed according to the thematic content analysis proposed by Minayo.

Results:

16 physical therapists participated in the study and, from the analysis of the empirical material, four thematic categories emerged: Instrumental touch as a fundamental resource of hospital physical therapy assistance; expressive touch: Its little presence does not mean absence of affection; physical therapist’s feelings related to touch and difficulty talking about touch means that there is a deficiency in training.

Conclusions:

The underuse of expressive touch revealed the lack of knowledge and unpreparedness in the formation of the physical therapist, which, added to the lack of self-knowledge, hinders the affection and the creation of bonds in relationships. All of this justifies the rare studies on affective touch in health, which reflects an area to be explored and the need to sensitize professionals to influence the quality and humanization of care.

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