ABSTRACT

Background & Objective: Fatigue, which is a common symptom in daily life, has lots of effects on women's life dimensions. Foot reflexology massages creates physical, mental and spiritual balance by alleviating soreness and fatigue resulting from women’s activities inside and outside of the home. It causes relaxation and improves their life quality as family managers and half of the active community population. This study was performed to find out the effect of foot- reflexology massage on fatigue in women.

Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted over 41 women referring to the Rama Spa Massage Services Center, in before/after single group. This center is under the supervision of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and is dependent to the Traditional Medicine Association. After conducting a 6 week refleyology massage, for 2 sessions a week, every session lasting for an hour, data collected and women’s fatigue was measured by Piper Fatigue Scale (1990). Data was analyzed by SPSS v.17 software, using descriptive and inferential (paired t-test) statistics.

Findings: The average fatigue before and after intervention were 4.79±1.78 and 3.27±1.27, respectively (p<0.001). The obtained results from the questionnaire sub domains (behavioral, emotional, sensory, mood-cognitive) showed significant differences before and after the massage at the level of p≤ 0.05.

Conclusion: Foot-reflexology massage has had effect on women’s fatigue, so that the amount of fatigue after the massage has been less than the fatigue before it. Therefore this intervention as a nursing action could reduce fatigue with the aim of peace and health promotion in women.

Keywords: Foot Reflexology Massage, Fatigue, Women