Acupressure to Promote Sleep Quality of Older People in Residential Aged Care Facilities

The intervention involves 12-minute acupressure sessions, three times a week for four weeks. Acupressure technique is application of finger or thumb pressure for 2 minutes on each acupoint (acupuncture point) using circular motion. The selected acupoints are HT7, PC6 and SP6; located on both wrists, hands, and calves. The time for acupressure will be scheduled in the morning or afternoon (from 9am – 5pm), at a convenient time for the participants. Acupressure will be performed by the PhD student researcher, who has career background in general nursing, hemodialysis and nursing education. She attended acupressure practitioner training in Sydney, Australia. One of the supervisors of the PhD student researcher is a qualified acupressure practitioner. She has supervised the design and implementation of the acupressure intervention. This dosage is based on the findings of systematic and integrative reviews (Hmwe et al., 2018; Hmwe et al., 2016; Waits et al., 2016). For the present study, acupressure intervention protocol has been developed based on TCM concepts, literatures including reviews (Hmwe et al., 2016; Hmwe et al.; 2018; Huang et al., 2009; Waits et al., 2016), research evidences (Lai et al., 2017; Lu et al., 2013; Reza et al., 2010; Zeng et al., 2016), and consultation with qualified specialist in acupressure (one of the PhD supervisors). To maintain fidelity of the intervention, student researcher will adhere to the acupressure intervention protocol. She will keep field note records, which include date and time of acupressure sessions, and observation on participants' general condition during each acupressure session. The supervision team will monitor the performance of student researcher.