A study to assess effectiveness of foot reflexology on anxiety of patients undergoing hemodialysis in tertiary care hospital, Karad

Abstract

Objectives: (1) To assess the level of anxiety among experimental and control groups of patients undergoing hemodialysis. (2) To determine the effectiveness of foot reflexology on anxiety among experimental group of patients undergoing hemodialysis. (3) To find the association between level of anxiety and selected sociodemographical variables among experimental and control groups of patients undergoing hemodialysis. Methods: The research approach adopted for this study was an evaluative approach, where the research design was a quasi-experimental design. The study was conducted in the dialysis unit in Krishna Hospital, Karad. The sample consists of 40 patients undergoing hemodialysis and further assigned to 20 in the experimental group and 20 in the control group. A convenient sampling technique was used to select the sample. The experimental group received foot reflexology twice in a week for 3 consecutive weeks and each session lasted for 20 minutes where a control group followed hospital routine management. The data were collected by structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The mean post-test anxiety score in the experimental group was 16.6, and in the control group, it was 22.55, which was significantly greater. The t-test value was 3.50 and was found significant at p<0.001 level. The values revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in a level of anxiety between the experimental and control groups in the post-test. Conclusion: The study results show that the foot reflexology was effective to reduce the level of anxiety.