Comparison of the effects of acupressure and touch on the headache caused by spinal anesthesia after cesarean section

Post-Dural puncture headache (PDPH) is one of the common complications of spinal anesthesia, especially after cesarean section. It is better to treat this headache by non-pharmaceutical methods. One of the non-pharmaceutical pain control methods is the use of acupressure. But so far, its impact on headache after spinal anesthesia has not been studied. Therefore, this study was performed with aim to evaluate the effect of acupressure and touch on headache caused by spinal anesthesia after cesarean section.
This randomized clinical trial with control group was conducted on 90 patients who underwent cesarean section by spinal anesthesia in Semnan Amir AlMomenin (A) Hospital in 2015. These patients were randomly divided into acupressure, touch and control groups. Pain severity was measured by Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Then, changes of pain severity pre and post intervention was measured and recorded. Data was analyzed by SPSS software (version 16) and Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficient tests, Kruskal-Wallis test, ANOVA and paired t-test. P The mean of pre-intervention PDHP scores in the control, touch and acupressure groups were 4.43±1.47, 4.48±1.65 and 4.73±1.72, respectively that no statistically significant difference was observed between three groups in terms of mean of pre-intervention PDHP scores (P˃0.05). After the intervention, there was a statistically significant decrease in mean pain score in acupressure and touch groups in comparison with control group (P˂0.001). Also, after intervention, there was a statistically significant decrease in mean of headache scores in the acupressure group compared with touch group (P˂0.001).
Comparing with touch, acupressure was more effective for headache-relieving after spinal anesthesia in women undergoing cesarean section. Therefore, it is suggested that acupressure along with other conventional treatments be used to control and treat such headaches