Table 1 Exclusion criteria

Non-empirical

n = 63

n = 7

Articles not presenting empirical evidence (e.g. opinion pieces, commentaries, guidelines), as well as individual case studies providing anecdotal evidence

Language

n = 17

n = 0

Articles not in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Finnish

Population

(P)

Non-human touch

n = 23

n = 0

Articles presenting touch performed by autonomous technological agents (e.g. robots), or in virtual environments, rather than via direct skin-to-skin contact

Out of scope

n = 125

n = 5

Articles presenting findings from outside the standard remit of allied health professions, nursing, medicine, and care work

Interest

(I)

Brain and physiology

n = 81

n = 3

Studies investigating how touch functions in terms of brain processing dynamics, or touch physiology

Touch as metaphor

n = 43

n = 1

Articles using touch terminology as a metaphor to describe emotional engagement, e.g. ‘being touched by the kindness of a nurse’, or to discuss embodiment in general terms, with touch being just one of many embodied strategies

Effects of touch

n = 0

n = 17

Articles describing in general terms how touch can benefit (or hinder) patients, without actually describing what specific touch instances do what

Physical assessments

n = 0

n = 11

Articles focusing solely on the practice of touch in terms of biomechanics, rather than on its socio-cultural elements

Context

(Co)

Neo-natal interventions

n = 28

n = 0

Articles presenting data referring to touch interventions towards pre-verbal children, for whom touch has different properties, and because of the different anatomical conformation of babies

Intervention touch

n = 267

n = 6

Articles presenting forms of touch and touch techniques for therapeutic, non-medical relief (e.g. Reiki, energy practice, message therapy), since these forms of touch differ conceptually from physical touch for the purpose of clinical support (instrumental or affective) [50]