Self-administered Acupressure for Symptom Management of Caregiver Stress

Taking care of an elderly family member can be stressful and family caregivers are at risk for emotional, mental and physical health problems arising from caregiver stress. Although a variety of psychosocial and pharmacological strategies have been developed to reduce caregiver stress, the efficacy in mitigating caregiver distress is modest. Acupressure, a non-invasive technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) by applying pressure on acupoints, has been successfully used for management of multiple symptoms without adverse effects. Thus, this study using a randomized, wait-list controlled trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of self-administered acupressure intervention on caregiver stress and associated distress symptoms of fatigue, insomnia or depression. A total of 200 Chinese family caregivers with caregiver stress and stress related symptoms of fatigue, insomnia or depression will be recruited from a community setting in Hong Kong and randomized to receive either a self-administered acupressure intervention or wait-list condition. The self-administered acupressure intervention will comprise (i) 5-hr individual learning and training session in the first 2 weeks, (ii) 2-hr home-visit reinforcement during 3rd and 4th week, and (iii) a total of 21-hr self-practice at home over 6 weeks. It is hypothesized that the family caregivers in the intervention group will have, upon completion of the program, lower levels of caregiver stress, lower scores of fatigue, insomnia, and depression with improved health-related quality of life as compared with that in the wait-list control group.

Inclusion criteria

• Chinese woman or man, 21 years of age or older, able to communicate in Cantonese or Putonghua,
• Primary caregiver of an elderly family member aged ≥ 65 years,
• Providing unpaid care to the care recipient at no less than 14 hours per week,
• Primarily responsible for making day-to-day decisions and providing assistance to the care recipient in tasks relating to activities of daily living (e.g. bathing, dressing, toileting etc.) and/or instrumental activities of daily living (e.g. housework, grocery shopping, preparing meals, managing medications etc.), and
• Screened positive for caregiver stress (a summed score of ≥ 25 as measured by the Caregiver Burden Inventory), with symptoms of fatigue (a mean score of ≥ 4 as measured by the Piper Fatigue Scale), insomnia (a global score of > 5 as measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), OR depression (a total score of ≥ 10 as measured by the Patient Health

Exclusion criteria

• Cognitive impairment (a Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of ≤ 23), or
• Major chronic illness (e.g. cancer) or currently taking any medications (e.g. opiates) that may prevent them from performing the intervention, or
• Participated in intervention studies involving acupressure or acupuncture previously.