Auricular Point Acupressure to Improve Sleep Quality in Taiwanese Postpartum Women with Insomnia

To evaluate the effectiveness of a 3-week auricular point acupressure (APA) in relieving insomnia in postpartum women. Nonrandomized controlled trial. Sixty postpartum women reporting poor quality of sleep were recruited in one postpartum center in northern Taiwan from February 2013 to June 2013. We used a quasi-experimental, two-group pretest–post test design and a convenience sampling method. The acupoints selected for APA included three acupoints for improving sleep: shenmen, heart, and kidney. APA was administered by a trained registered nurse. After 21 days of APA intervention, the experimental group (n = 30) experienced significantly less insomnia than the control group (5.83 ± 2.31 vs. 8.16 ± 2.17, t = −4.11, p = .001) measured by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The preliminary findings of this study showed improvement in quality of sleep suggesting that APA may be a promising treatment for women with insomnia. Nurses interested in complementary therapies should be encouraged to obtain training in APA and to apply it in postpartum care.