Evaluation of acupressure effects on self-efficacy and pregnancy rate in infertile women under fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment: A randomized controlled trial.

CONTEXT

Infertility is one of the major stressful events in individual life, especially women. Self-efficacy means a person can perceive a potentially threatening and stressful situation as being amenable to influences of personal control.

AIMS

This study was conducted to determine the acupressure effects on self-efficacy and pregnancy rate in infertile women under fertilization (IVF)/intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN

This study was a randomized controlled trial in infertile women. It performed at Milad IVF Center, Mashhad, Iran, from September 2015 to August 2016.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The sample size was 144 participants. The participants were randomly divided into three groups: real and sham acupressure and control groups. Acupressure performed on the H7 and P6 acupoints on both the hands. The infertility self-efficacy scale was completed before and after intervention. Beta-human chorionic gonadotropin hormone assay was measured to determine pregnancy. Data analysis was done by Chi-square, Fisher's exact, paired sample , Kruskal-Wallis, and ANOVA test and general linear model and multinomial logistic. Levels of significance were reported at < 0.05.

RESULTS

The mean age of women was 30.84 ± 5.34 years. The ovulation factor ( = 0.02) and spouse's job ( = 0.05) were statistically significant difference between the groups. The score of self-efficacy and frequency of clinical pregnancy were no significant difference among three groups. Using linear regression, only the score of primary self-efficacy (before intervention) was in a significant relationship with self-efficacy after the intervention ( < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

To our results, we recommend more research for assessing acupressure effects on self-efficacy and clinical pregnancy rate in infertile women.