Effect of Acupressure on Anxiety and General Psychological Distress among Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: A Systematic Review

Background: Patients with chronic kidney disease along with co morbidities (like diabetes mellitus, hypertension) undergoing hemodialysis are more prone to stress and anxiety. Most often these psychological problems remain unrecognized which reduces the patient’s quality of life. Objectives: To collect the data and review various studies. Methodology: The study design was systematic review the study includes the studies those who were related to psychological phenomenon like anxiety and general psychological distress among the patients undergoing hemodialysis and the studies showed the effect of acupressure on these phenomenon, and excludes the studies those discussed about the other method to deal with the anxiety and psychological stressor. Analysis: The data was grouped and analyzed in terms of Meta analysis. Studies were identified through searches of MEDLINE, PUBMED, Elsevier and Google Scholar. Abstracted information is about the study design, population characteristics, interventions and outcomes. Conclusion: Psychological illnesses are the major problems by which the person with chronic kidney disease suffers which causes significant impairment while patient is under hemodialysis. Several studies came out with the conclusions that administration of acupressure over the acupoints is beneficial along with the auricular acupressure showed significant reduction in the anxiety and general psychological distress.