Medicinal & Aromatic Plants
Open Access
ISSN: 2167-0412
ISSN: 2167-0412
Ng Sin Chuen, W M Lee and M K Li
The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Med Aromat Plants
Background & Aim: Insomnia, a global health problem, was poorly managed by hypnotics and psychological therapy. Promising results in relieving insomnia were reported by using Auricular Acupressure (AA) of Chinese medicine. Such studies mainly targeted at older people in Hong Kong. Insomnia was also common among the undergraduate nursing students as they were stressful with heavy workload especially in handling life and death situations during their clinical practice. Insomnia adversely affected their health and increased the risk of committing medical incidents during clinical practice. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of AA in managing insomnia among undergraduate nursing students in Hong Kong. Methodology: This was an interventional study adopting one group pretest-posttest design. The participants were recruited from one local university when they met the inclusion criteria. The intervention was to apply AA using the auricular plasters with semen Vaccariae onto seven auricular acupoints for two weeks. Insomnia Severity Index Scale (ISI) was collected on day 0 and 14. Results: 42 participants were recruited with 38 participants completed the intervention (attrition rate=9.5%). Only 18 participants (47.4%) reported mild local itchiness which was subsided shortly. It was found that insomnia improved significantly after receiving AA as reflected by the overall ISI scores (t=9.61, p<0.001) and its seven sub-scores (t=4.95 to 10.25, p<0.001). Conclusion: AA was regarded as a safe and effective therapy of Chinese medicine in managing insomnia among undergraduate nursing students in Hong Kong. It was recommended to conduct a large-scale study to provide more empirical evidence in this regard.
Ng Sin Chuen has completed the Master of Nursing in Chinese Medicinal Nursing from the Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. She is currently working in Hospital Authority in Hong Kong as Registered Nurse. She is Specialized in Respiratory Nursing in Rehabilitation.
E-mail: sinchuen1225@gmail.com