Acupressure and Sleep Quality of Nursing Students

This randomised, controlled and experimental study was conducted between 15 April and 15 June 2022 to examine the effect of acupressure on sleep quality of fourth-year nursing students. The population of the study consisted of all fourth-year nursing students and the sample consisted of 53 students who met the inclusion criteria. Approval from the ethics committee, permission from the institution and consents from the students were obtained before the research. The participants were assigned to intervention (n=26) and control (n=27) groups by simple random sampling method. The students in the intervention group were subjected to acupressure on the right and left sides of Shenmen (HT7) acupuncture point of the heart meridian, Sanyinjiao (SP6) acupuncture point of the spleen meridian, Neiguan (PC6) acupuncture point of the pericardium point, and Tian-Zhu (BL10) acupuncture point of the neck. The researcher having the certificate practised acupressure on each point for two minutes each, totalling 16 minutes, three days a week for four weeks. A questionnaire and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were applied at the beginning of the study, and the PSQI was applied again at the end of the fourth week. Total score of the PSQI ranges from 0 to 21. A total score higher than five indicates poor sleep quality. It was found that the PSQI total mean score of the intervention group dropped from 8.53±2.45 to 6.38±3.64, while the PSQI total mean score of the control group decreased from 9.40±1.62 to 8.40±3.48 (p\<0.05). Also, subjective sleep quality, sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction significantly decreased in the intervention group (p\<0.05).