Effect of back massage on sleep quality in elderly residing at nursing homes of Kermanshah city, 2014

Introduction and Massage therapy is one of the most common and safe methods in complementary therapy worldwide and it is also the most popular alternative therapy in nursing care.The aim of this study was to determine effect of back massage on sleep quality in the elderly residing at nursing homes of Kermanshah city. In this single-blinded radomized control trial, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI) was used to screen and select cases suffer from sleep disorders. The samples were selected by purposive sampling method and then assigned to two case groups and one control group. Each group composed of 30 subjects and there were equal numbers of each sex withine groups. We analyzed data using ANOVA, ANCOVA, Repeated Measures ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis test. The results of this study showed that after intervention there were significant differences between three groups for the following scores; subjective sleep quality (p = 0.025), actual duration of sleep (p = 0.012), sleep efficiency (p = 0. 022), sleep disturbance (p = 0.025), daily function (p = 0.033), sleep latency (p <0.001) and average total score of the PSQI (p = 0.001). In addition, there was a significant difference between the sub-scales and the total score of the PSQI (p = 0.021). Daily record of sleep in the current study indicated improved sleep quality and reduced nocturnal awakenings during the intervention (p = 0.001) This study confirmed beneficial effect of back massage on improving sleep quality in elderly residing at nursing homes. Massage therapy can be used as a non-pharmacologic therapeutic approach for sleep disorders among elderly.