Effectiveness of Acupressure on Quality of Sleep of Hemodialysis Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Poor quality of sleep is most commonly reported problem among patients undergoing Hemodialysis. Acupressure is a traditional treatment in which pressure is applied to specific points by fingers on the body to reestablish a healthy status by engaging the body’s natural healing abilities. Material & Method: A quantitative Quasi-experimental study design was used to measure the level of quality of sleep and to study the effectiveness of acupressure on quality of sleep of Hemodialysis patients. Thirty Chronic renal failure patients undergoing Hemodialysis (HD) were selected through simple random sampling technique to study the variables. Before and after the acupressure Intervention quality of sleep was measured using Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Acupressure intervention was given over shenmen points for 9 cycles. Results: Every second (50%) of the patient undergoing Hemodialysis reported ‘fairly bad’ sleep quality and One third (33.3%) of them were reported ‘very bad’ sleep quality. Thirty days of acupressure intervention among the Hemodialysis patients significantly (p?0.05) improved their level of sleep from pre intervention (10.9±2.7) to post intervention (3.0±1.0) and the mean difference was 7.9. Conclusion: The study results shows that majority of the dialysis patients reported ‘Bad’ sleep quality also, none of them had ‘very good’ sleep quality. Acupressure therapy significantly improved the quality of sleep of dialysis patients.