Effect of Acupressure on Severity of Fatigue in women with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis affects the patients’ quality of sleep. Acupressure is an inexpensive and non invasive procedure that can be used to control symptoms of the disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of acupressure on quality of sleep in women with MS. In this single blind randomized clinical controlled trial، 100 women were recruited from Esfahan MS association. Subjects were equally divided into two groups of experimental and placebo، by random allocation method. Then P. S. Q. I was used to evaluate the quality of sleep in each group. The members of experimental group were under acupressure in shen men point for 5 minutes bilaterally. In addition، the participants were instructed to perform acupressure in same point once daily for four weeks. Subjects in placebo group were trained to touch the placebo point. The quality of sleep was measured in both groups four weeks after intervention. The data was analyzed by SPSS. The study findings showed no difference in sample characteristics between the experimental and placebo groups. But there were no significant differences in quality of sleep (p=0. 89) at baseline in two groups. There was significant improving on quality of sleep in experimental group compared to placebo group four weeks after intervention (p<0. 0001) This study showed، that acupressure can be effective in improving sleep quality in women with multiple sclerosis.