| Summary: | 碩士 === 義守大學 === 管理學院管理碩士在職專班 === 99 === Nurses caring for the patients with severe diseases in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) often have excessive work load. The repetitive motion, overexertion, improper posture and overloads cause tissue injuries, which lead to occurrences of pain. There is a high prevalence of musculoskeletal health problems such as shoulder, neck and back pain among nurses worldwide. Neck and shoulder pain (NSP) in nurses has the potential to affect their nursing practice and hence quality of life (QOL) and causes sleep problems. So far, research has not produced convincing evidence that acupressure is effective for NSP. It is unknown about the effects of acupressure in NSP in ICU nurses.
The study was a clinical trial and aimed to evaluate the effects of acupressure in alleviating NSP for ICU nurses. A total of 58 nurses with NSP were recruited form a large hospital, and randomly assigned to either a true-acupressure or a sham-acupressure group. Three acupressure points for the true-acupressure group were selected, namely Fengchi (Feng chi GB 20), Jian Jingxue (Jianjing GB 21) and shoulder shu (Jian waishu SI 14). Both groups had 3 minutes per acupoint, 3 acupoints per session, 2 sessions of acupressure per day, 10 sessions of acupressure per week for six weeks, for a total of 60 sessions. Pressing and massaging (circle the pinpoint around the acupoint) every acupoint for 3 seconds and then resting for 3 seconds were recommended. The acupressure on three sham acupoints as control was designed for the study. In the sham-acupressure group, the three acupoints were located one inch proximal to GB20, GB21 and SI 14. A structured questionnaire was administered for both groups before, after and a week after the intervention.
Nurses in the true-acupressure groups showed statistically significant improvements, and there were significant differences between groups, while a relatively large decrease in pain scores, and improvements in sleep quality and QOL scores were found in the true-acupressure group as compared with the sham-acupressure group. In the true-acupressure group, mean scores on the pain decreased significantly after acupressure and that sleep quality and QOL for this group improved significantly, as compared to the sham-acupressure group. Results of the sham-acupressure group showed that, on scores of QOL, there were no significant differences a week after the intervention.
The study demonstrates that acupressure is effective or has therapeutic benefits for NSP in ICU nurses. Further investigation is warranted, with larger samples and longer intervention.
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