Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1013756
A B M P m e m b e r s e a r n F R E E C E a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / c e b y r e a d i n g M a s s a g e & B o d y w o r k m a g a z i n e 51 SOMATIC RESE ARCH when personal reflection is compared to and, when possible, discussed with experienced or otherwise skilled massage therapists or care professionals. This is an ideal application of evidence-informed practice that also includes inner- and intra- discipline dialogue and engagement. Bottom line, even though the research presented in the article is primarily a feasibility study, several practice-informing information nuggets exist, including, but not limited to, those outlined above. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A FEASIBILITY AND/OR PILOT STUDY? Large and fully powered clinical trials provide some of the strongest evidence for interventions, whether pharmacologically based or provider administered. While still a clinical trial, the massage and reading for pediatric postcardiac surgery pilot study was not large or fully powered, but is an absolutely necessary step in developing an evidence base. Clinical research, particularly large clinical trials, takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. Before money and other valuable resources are spent on the largest and most impactful endeavors, several things should be established and demonstrated to ensure these important commodities are not wasted. For example, interventions must be conceived and procedures devised, before they are implemented in a real but small-scale research setting (whether that setting is in a controlled lab space or a practice clinic) to see if the intervention is logistically practical, acceptable to the study participants and related study or clinic personnel, and, perhaps most importantly, reliably measurable. For planning and budgeting purposes, researchers and funders need to have a good estimate of how long it will take to recruit participants, how much attrition (drop out) to expect, and what procedures may be needed to address known and unknown obstacles to completing the research as needed— including how compliant participants and research personnel will be to the study's protocol. In addition, there has to be confidence that the way outcomes are measured is accurate, valid, and relevant in the grand scheme of things. Feasibility and pilot studies provide the opportunity to establish these important items at a fraction of the cost and give the research team the opportunity to complete an important dry run of everything to work out any last-minute kinks. As a person whose spouse starts two-month home- improvement projects that last six years, I heed the adage, "by failing to plan, you plan to fail." Jumping right into a full-scale, large project without first establishing and testing all of the processes in any field is folly; doubly so for those in which stewardship is needed to safeguard public and private funds and resources. Feasibility and pilot studies are crucial steps in the research endeavor. While such steps add more time to the foundational evidence- building timeline, they reap benefits by improving the quality, and thereby the impact, of the large clinical trials. SUMMARY Conducting research takes a long time. This is true whether considered from the micro perspective of a single study or the macro perspective of a cumulative, multi- study research program. The highlighted research in this column is only the first step in a long research process, and I look forward to the future work in this area from this and other research teams. However, the massage profession need not sit back and wait for the final, big clinical trial to be completed and disseminated before being aware of and incorporating the available research evidence into practice. The "Impact of Massage and Reading on Children's Pain and Anxiety after Cardiovascular Surgery: A Pilot Study" begins to fill a gap in our field's research literature and demonstrates the feasibility and safety of massage by experienced and trained professional massage therapists for children recovering from cardiac surgery. While I have highlighted many items from this study that can be incorporated into practice, I encourage everyone to read this article and ask yourself how the procedures and processes discussed can inform practice. Better yet, get together with others in your massage therapy community and have broader discussions of the work. In addition to developing a research-informed massage support network, you will improve your research literacy and potential public reach for this important work. Notes 1. Courtney Boyd et al., "The Impact of Massage Therapy on Function in Pain Populations—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials: Part III, Surgical Pain Populations," Pain Medicine 17, no. 9 (2016): 1757–72. 2. Sandra L. Staveski et al., "The Impact of Massage and Reading on Children's Pain and Anxiety After Cardiovascular Surgery: A Pilot Study," Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (2018), https://doi. org/10.1097/PCC.0000000000001615. 3. Keane Y. S. Tzong et al., "Epidemiology of Pediatric Surgical Admissions in US Children: Data from the HCUP Kids Inpatient Database," Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology 24, no. 4 (2012): 391–95. Niki Munk, PhD, LMT, is an assistant professor of health sciences at Indiana University, a Kentucky-licensed massage therapist, a visiting fellow with the Australian Research Centre in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, and mother of two young daughter-scientists. Munk's research explores real-world massage therapy for chronic pain, trigger point self-care, massage for amputation-related sequelae, and the reporting and impact of massage-related case reports. Contact her at nmunk@iu.edu.