The Efficacy of Auricular Acupressure on Improving Sleep Quality for the Elderly in Community Care Center

• Main Authors: LEE, YI-CHIN, 李怡青
• Other Authors: CHIEN, TSUI-WEI
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/87ggtg

碩士 === 國立臺北護理健康大學 === 護理研究所 === 107 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using auricular acupressure to improve the sleep quality of elderly in the community care center. A randomized controlled clinical trial that included crossover design was used in the study. The participants were recruited from the community care centers of 65 years old or older in a certain district of Taichung City. All participants scored greater than 5 on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire. They were randomly assigned to Group A and Group B. These two groups of elders were experimental group and control group at different time series. The experimental group was provided six weeks of auricular acupressure, while the control group did not receive any intervention. After the end of six weeks, both groups had four-week washout time; then the next six-week auricular acupressure was performed, and they were the control group and the experimental group, and the sustained effect evaluation of the auricular acupressure was performed four weeks after the intervention. The measurement tools of the study were included the demographic data, Chinese version of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI) and auricular acupressure (using two "Wang Vaccaria seeds" to acupressure on the four points of Shenmen, Heart, Occiput and Subcortex. Press three times a day, each time for two minutes). The results of the study were analyzed by SPSS (22.0 version) statistical software. A total of 62 elders in this study completed intervention and data collection. There were 31 elders in each group. The statistical results show that the demographic data and the PSQI score (pre-test) were homogenous. The results showed that within group's effectiveness, Group A improved after the implementation of the six-week auricular acupressure overall sleep quality (p = 0.000); five of the seven aspects including subjective sleep quality (p = 0.000), sleep latency (p = 0.02), sleep hours (p = 0.011), sleep efficiency (p = 0.0033), and sleep disturbance (p = 0.000) have improved. Group B also improved overall sleep quality (p = 0.000); five of seven aspects, including subjective sleep quality (p = 0.000), sleep latency (p = 0.001), sleep hours (p = 0.005), sleep disturbance (p = 0.000), and daytime dysfunction (p = 0.014) were improved. At the effectiveness between two groups: after provided six weeks of auricular acupressure, Group A were better than Group B in overall sleep quality (p = 0.000), especially in the three aspects of subjective sleep quality (p = 0.000), sleep hours (p = 0.001) and sleep efficiency (p = 0.013), the improvement was obvious. After four-week washout time, Group B performed the auricular acupressure. The results showed that Group B improved the overall sleep quality compared with Group A (p = 0.004). Especially in the four aspects of subjective sleep quality (p = 0.021), sleep hours (p = 0.035), sleep disturbance (p = 0.002) and daytime dysfunction (p = 0.000), the improvement was significant. Finally, the sustained effectiveness of the auricular acupressure intervention: four weeks after the end of the auricular acupressure, the overall sleep quality of Group A weakened or disappeared, and the sustained effect was not obtained; only the sleep-disturbance (p = 0.000) can achieve effectiveness. But the overall sleep quality of Group B was continuously affected (p = 0.000); and there four aspects of subjective sleep quality (p = 0.000), sleep latency (p = 0.001), sleep hours (p = 0.004), and sleep disturbance (p = 0.000) also have sustained effects. This study can demonstrate the auricular acupressure improved the sleep quality of the elderly in the community care centers. It is expected that the results of this study can be widely used in elders with insomnia to improving the problem of insomnia, and encourage the quality of life and achieve active aging. Keywords: community care center, elders, auricular acupressure, sleep quality, crossover design