Effects of acupuncture combined with relaxation training on pain,anxiety and sleep quality in patients with advanced cancer / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the effects of acupuncture combined with relaxation training on the pain,anxiety and sleep quality in advanced cancer patients.Methods Seventy-one advanced cancer patients with different severity of pain were included in this study and divided into an experimental group and a control group.Besides treatment of analgesic,patients in experimental group were additionally given treatment of acupuncture and relaxation training,while those in control group were only given analgesic.All subjects were evaluated with questionnaires of Pain Inventory,Self-rating Anxiety Scale(SAS),Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI)and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy(FACT-G)before and after treatment.Results Total rate of pain relief in the experimental group was 90.63%,which was significantly lower than that in the control group(84.62%)(P＜0.05),showing that acupuncture combined with relaxation training was more effective for pain relief than analgesic therapy in cancer patients.The scores of sleep indexes and anxiety of PSQI and SAS in experimental group were significantly better than those in control group(P＜0.01).There was no significant difference in the scores of quality of life(QOL)between the two groups.Conclusion Acupuncture combined with relaxation training was more effective for relief of pain and anxiety,and for improvement of sleep quality than analgesic therapy in cancer patients.But short-term intervention had no effect on QOL in advanced cancer patients.