Investigating the influence of acupressure on anxiety and pregnancy rate among infertile women

Background: Infertility as a negative event for couples, especially for women, is one of the major stressful events in personal life. Different factors such as age, infertility cause and duration, life style factors including socioeconomic and mental status are effective on treatments outcome. The aim of the present study was to determine the acupressure effect on anxiety and pregnancy rate in infertile women.Methods: This study is a randomized controlled trial carried on infertile women undergoing ICSI treatment. It was performed at Milad IVF center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. 152 participants entered in the present study with inclusion criteria of women age between 20 to 45 years, Iranian native, female and/or male infertility, mild and/or moderate anxiety by using Beck anxiety inventory, and primary infertility. The subjects were randomly divided into three groups of real acupressure, sham acupressure and control. Data were analyzed through descriptive and analytic statistics. Level of significance was P Result: There was a significant difference in anxiety reduction rate in all three groups. However, no significant difference was observed among three groups regarding clinical pregnancy rate.Conclusion: Acupressure may be effective in reducing anxiety, but to assess the effect of acupressure on pregnancy rate, more research is needed.

Keywords:

Anxiety , Infertility , Pregnancy rate , Women , Acupressure