A Randomized Controlled Trial to Investigate the Effect of ‎Relaxation Technique on Sleep Quality of Hemodialysis Patients

Abstract

Objective(s): To examine the effect of a relaxation technique on the sleep quality of patients undergoing hemodialysis and to find out relationship between effect of a relaxation technique and demographic variables.

Methods: A randomized clinical trial was carried out between February 22, 2023 and May 1, 2024. The study was conducted at two hemodialysis centers situated in Al-Nasiriyah City: Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital and Al-Nasiriyah Teaching Hospital. Following the determination of the sample size, a total of 154 patients were chosen and separated into two groups: 77 patients allocated to the experimental group and 77 patients assigned to the control group. In the experimental group, Benson relaxation technique was used, and the sleep quality was assessed using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The SPSS 26.0 was used to analyze the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics (frequency, percentage, mean score, data was analyzed using paired-samples T-test and independent t-test.

Results: The data analysis showed that all 154 patients had poor sleep quality in the pre-test for all two groups. The post-test findings demonstrated a substantial improvement in sleep quality for the study group who used the relaxation approach, with an average score of 2.774±23.731.

Conclusion: A statistically significant disparity was observed regarding sleep quality among hemodialysis patients from the experimental group before to and after the implementation of a relaxing strategy. The research showcased that the use of Benson's relaxation method resulted in a substantial improvement in the sleep quality of patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Recommendations: The findings recommend the use of the relaxation technique in trial to all patients who undergo hemodialysis to generalize the findings of experiment to hemodialysis units in hospitals.