The effect of acupressure on fatigue among patients with multiple sclerosis

This study was conducted in a randomized, controlled and experimental design for the purpose of examining the effect of acupressure applied to patients with multiple sclerosis on fatigue. Approval from the ethics committee, permission from the institution where the study would be conducted and consent from the patients were obtained before the study. The sample number was determined with power analysis and the patients meeting the inclusion criteria were divided into intervention (30) and control (30) groups. The data of the study were collected using a questionnaire and the fatigue scale. In the scale, the cutoff value for pathological fatigue is four and above and highness of total score (maximum 7) signifies the increase of fatigue. During the study, the control group received their routine treatment, whereas the intervention group received both routine treatment as well as acupressure applied by the researcher with certified acupressure training using the points Li4, ST36 and SP6 for three times a week for totally four weeks. At the end of this process, fatigue levels of both groups were evaluated again. The data were evaluated using the Shaphiro Wilk, Student t, Mann Whitney U, ANOVA-LSD, Chi-square, Allpairwise and Kruskal Wallis tests. After the acupressure administration, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the intervention and control groups in terms of fatigue mean scores (p< 0.05). According to these results obtained from the study; it can be recommended to train MS patients concerning acupressure administration in order to decrease the fatigue associated with MS. Keywords: Acupressure, nursing, multiple sclerosis, fatigue.