Comparing Effect of Auricular Acupressure and Body Acupressure on Pain and Duration of First Stage of Labor: Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract Background Labor pain is one of the leading causes for fear of childbirth. Acupressure is a non-pharmacological pain relief method which showed promising results. Comparing the effect of body acupressure at multiple points and auricular acupressure on the pain and duration of labor, the present study is designed. Methods/Design In a randomized controlled trial, 90 primigravida women who attend for childbirth would be randomly assigned to three groups (interventions: body acupressure and auricular acupressure, control: routine care). In order to determine the allocation sequence with 1:1:1 ratio, the computer-generated 6-block randomization techniques would be used. To hide the allocation, the type of intervention will be written based on the generated sequence and put in opaque enveloped pockets; then, the pockets as well as questionnaires are encoded respectively. The pain score of all the participants would be measured at the peak uterine contraction at the 4cm cervical dilation and at 10 cm dilation based on visual analog scale (VAS). Duration of the active phase of labor in these groups are recorded too. Data are imported into SPSS-16 software. First, normality of the data distribution will be investigated. To compare the labor duration among the research groups, ANOVA would be used, which will be followed, in case of significance, by the Scheffe post-hoc test. Furthermore, Chi-squared test would be used to compare the categorized demographic variables and ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests will be used to compare the quantitative variables in the studied groups. significance level of 0.05 is considered significant. Discussion In this study the effect of auricular acupressure and body acupressure on pain and duration of first stage of labor will be compared.