Reports of patient and staff outcomes from hospitals with Reiki programs

Reiki has been used in hospital operating rooms since the mid-1990s. Hospitals are incorporating it into their options for patient services, often with their own Reiki-trained volunteers, nurses, physicians and support staff.

This article is an excerpt from Reiki in Clinical Practice  by Amy Baldwin (copyright Handspring Publishing, 2020). Available at: https://terrarosa.com.au/product/books/energy-therapy-books/reiki-in-clinical-practice/

A 2010 American Hospital Association survey (2010 Complementary and Alternative Medicine Survey of Hospitals by Sita Ananth, Samueli Institute) revealed that patient demand (85%) is by far the primary rationale in offering complementary medicine services, including Reiki. In addition, Reiki is now one of the top three complementary in-patient therapies offered in US hospitals. The survey showed that of the patients asking for complementary services, massage was requested by 37% of patients, music and art therapy by 25%, and “healing touch therapies” including Reiki and Therapeutic Touch, by 25%. According to a study published in USA Today (Gill, 2008), in 2007, more than 60 US hospitals offered Reiki as a hospital service, and Reiki education was offered at 800 hospitals.

One reason why hospital patients request Reiki is that hospital culture, particularly in emergency departments, emphasizes medical and technical skill and  efficiency at the expense of bedside manner. As a result, patients’ psychosocial and emotional needs are often neglected (Gordon et al., 2010). Patients feel vulnerable, anxious, stressed and fearful. There is a pattern of fragmentation of care, with one nurse assigned to triage, another to blood tests, a third to check the patient’s temperature and so on. The patients long for the personal contact that is lacking when overworked nurses and physicians have to rush onto their next case. When a patient receives Reiki, they are treated as a whole person; their physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions all receive attention. Anecdotal reports and patient surveys from several hospitals in the USA, along with detailed, extensive data from Hartford Hospital, Connecticut, USA are presented in the following section.

A list of 64 hospitals that incorporate Reiki programs can be found at the Center for Reiki Research website: www.centerforreikiresearch.org/Hospital List.aspx

Reiki  programs have also been  developed  in  other countries but at this stage few, if any, data are available about the effectiveness of the programs. In the UK, the Full Circle Fund Therapies is an award-winning charity that relies on integrative medicine in order to improve the quality of life of patients who are treated at St. George’s Hospital, London. Their mission is to introduce, evaluate and research Reiki in clinical practice. Presently, Full Circle Fund Therapies is working at the funding and logistics level of a project, called “Connecting Reiki with Medicine”, whose aim is to perform well-designed research studies to explore the benefits of Reiki.

University College London Hospitals NHS offer Reiki to patients with stress and mood disorder, and to complement the treatments of cancer and endometriosis. Wallace Cancer Care works with Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals, NHS to provide Reiki to complement conventional cancer treatments . More information about hospitals in the UK that offer Reiki can be found on the websites of the UK Reiki Federation and The Reiki Council. In Canada, the Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, conducted a study on the effects of Reiki with 20 oncology patients in chronic pain. A visual analog scale was used to measure pain before and after Reiki and it was concluded that Reiki greatly improved pain levels. In Spain, Reiki Master John Curtin, head of Fundacion Sauce, has initiated 400 volunteer Reiki practitioners who gave more than 8,000 Reiki sessions in Madrid hospitals in 2013.

This article is an excerpt from Reiki in Clinical Practice  by Amy Baldwin (copyright Handspring Publishing, 2020). Available at: https://terrarosa.com.au/product/books/energy-therapy-books/reiki-in-clinical-practice/