This study was conducted to examine the effects of foot reflexology on arthralgia, ankylosis, depression and sleep in community-dwelling elderly women with osteoarthritis.
The research adopted a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Participants were 47 elderly women: 22 in the experimental group and 25 in the control group. The experimental group received foot reflexology twice a week for 4 weeks. The results were analyzed using χ2-test, t-test, and ANCOVA with the SPSS/WIN 21.0 program.
The results showed that foot reflexology was statistically significantly effective in reducing arthralgia, ankylosis, and depression and in improving the quality of sleep as evidenced by differences between two groups.
The results of this study indicated that foot reflexology is an effective nursing intervention in reducing arthralgia, ankylosis, and depression, and improving the quality of sleep. Therefore, it is necessary to develop foot reflexology as an independent nursing intervention for elderly women with osteoarthritis in community.
Research design.
Homogeneity Test of General Characteristics (
Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.
†Fisher's Exact test.
Homogeneity Test of Dependent Variables (
Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.
Effect of Foot Reflexology Massage on Arthralgia, Ankylosis, Depression, and Sleep (
Exp.=experimental group; Cont.=control group.
†F Score is from Analysis of Covariance with pretest scores as covariates.