Mousavi Fatemeh S, Golmakani Nahid, Valiani Mahboubeh, Taghanaki Hamid Reza Bahrami, Rezaei Fatemeh
Msc in Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mashhad University Of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
J Educ Health Promot. 2024 Jan 22;12:458. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_1246_22. eCollection 2023.
Postoperative pain and anxiety are unpleasant situations that are often experienced by women undergoing cesarean section. Since the routine methods of pain relief after surgery is still inadequate, the need for complementary treatments is felt. Foot Reflexology (FR) and Auricular Acupressure (AA) are two of the most popular and safe procedures of complementary and alternative medicine therapies. So, this study aimed to determine and compare the effectiveness of reflexology and AA on postoperative pain and anxiety.
This three-group randomized clinical trial study was performed on 101 pregnant women, admitted to Mashhad Omolbanin hospital, for a cesarean section, in 2015. In the intervention groups, 2-3 h after the operation, AA or FR was performed for 20 min. Routine care was provided for the control group. Pain and anxiety were evaluated by VAS and Spielberger anxiety questionnaire before and 1 and 2 h after the intervention.
The results showed that immediately after the intervention, pain intensity was significantly lower in both AA and FR groups ( < 0.001) compared with the control group. In addition, 2 h after the interventions, pain intensity was significantly lower in the AA group compared with the control group ( = 0.006). However, no significant differences were observed between the FR and the control groups ( = 0.095). In addition, 1 and 2 h after the intervention, anxiety was significantly different between the three groups ( = 0.033 and = 0.018), respectively. The results of the Tukey test showed that this difference was only between FR and control groups ( = 0.025 and = 0.017), respectively.
AA is more effective in reducing post-cesarean pain while FR effectively reduces post-cesarean anxiety. Therefore, these complementary medicine treatments as easy and noninvasive methods are recommended to be used during labor for improving maternal outcomes.
术后疼痛和焦虑是剖宫产女性常经历的不愉快情况。由于术后常规止痛方法仍不充分，人们感到需要辅助治疗。足部反射疗法（FR）和耳穴按压（AA）是补充和替代医学疗法中最受欢迎且安全的两种方法。因此，本研究旨在确定并比较反射疗法和耳穴按压对术后疼痛和焦虑的效果。
这项三组随机临床试验研究于2015年对101名入住马什哈德奥莫尔巴宁医院进行剖宫产的孕妇进行。在干预组中，术后2 - 3小时进行20分钟的耳穴按压或足部反射疗法。对照组给予常规护理。在干预前、干预后1小时和2小时，通过视觉模拟评分法（VAS）和斯皮尔伯格焦虑问卷评估疼痛和焦虑情况。
结果显示，干预后即刻，耳穴按压组和足部反射疗法组的疼痛强度均显著低于对照组（P < 0.001）。此外，干预后2小时，耳穴按压组的疼痛强度显著低于对照组（P = 0.006）。然而，足部反射疗法组与对照组之间未观察到显著差异（P = 0.095）。另外，干预后1小时和2小时，三组之间的焦虑存在显著差异（P = 0.033和P = 0.018）。Tukey检验结果显示，这种差异仅分别存在于耳穴按压组与对照组之间（P = 0.025和P = 0.017）。
耳穴按压在减轻剖宫产术后疼痛方面更有效，而足部反射疗法能有效减轻剖宫产术后焦虑。因此，推荐将这些补充医学治疗作为简便且无创的方法在分娩期间使用，以改善产妇结局。
