Acupressure to Improve Insomnia Among the Elderly With Hypertension

September 17, 2026 updated by: Hoang T.X Huong, Phenikaa University

Self-acupressure to Improve Insomnia Among the Elderly With Hypertension: a Randomized Controlled Trial

The goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and the effect of self-acupressure on improving insomnia among the elderly with hypertension who reported insomnia (using the Insomnia Severity Index questionnaire)

The main questions it aims to answer are:

  • Is the proposed intervention feasible to deliver to the target population in terms of recruitment, retention, adherence, and completion of outcome assessments?
  • Does self-acupressure improve insomnia among the elderly with hypertension? Researchers will compare participants in the self-acupressure group (practice acupressure at home for 28 days) and the enhanced standard care group to see the effectiveness of acupressure in improving insomnia for hypertensive elderly individuals.

Participants in the self-acupressure group will be instructed how to locate and perform acupressure, then they will be asked to practice acupressure at home for 28 days (once a day).

Participants in the enhanced standard care group will receive training on how to apply sleep hygiene rules and will be asked to follow sleep hygiene rules for 28 days.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

94

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Hypertention patient who are ≥ 60 years old
  • Having Insomnia Severity Index score ≥ 11
  • Having Karnofsky score ≥ 80.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients who are currently participating in clinical trials for the treatment of insomnia.
  • Patients who are currently receiving pharmacological treatment for insomnia.
  • Patients with concomitant cardiovascular conditions, such as heart failure; patients with an implanted pacemaker; patients who have an indication for catheter-based cardiovascular intervention; or patients who have an indication for cardiovascular surgery.
  • Patients with psychiatric disorders, such as depression, generalized anxiety disorder, or bipolar disorder.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Acupressure group

Participants will receive a self-acupressure training section and requested to practice acupressure at home once a day at night time (before going to bed) for four weeks. During that time, participants will receive a weekly phone call follow up from researchers. By the end of week fourth, participants will be requested to complete post-intervention assessment. A short-term follow up will be then carried out in 4 weeks. By the end of follow up time, participants will be asked to complete post follow up assessement and received 200.000 vnd (12 usd) as complimentary.

The acupressure protocol of the intervention was developed and validated by 6 traditional and hypertensive experts.
Other: Acupressure to improve insomnia
The acupressure protocol of the intervention was developed and validated by 6 traditional and hypertensive experts. Participants will be ask to perform acupressure with 6 acupoint including: Baihui (GV20), Yintang (GV29), Shenmen (HT&0< Sanyinjao (SP6), Zushalin (ST36) at nightime (30 mins before going to bed) in 28 days.Each acupoint must be stimulated in 2 mins.
No Intervention: Control group
Participants in the control group will receive a training session on sleep hygiene rules and will be ask to practice thoes rule in 28 days. Weekly telephone reminder will also be made in four week. By the end of week fourth, participants in this group will be requested to complete post-intervention assessment. A short-term follow up will be then carried out in 4 weeks. During the follow-up period, participants receive no weekly telephone reminder. By the end of follow up time, researchers will make a telephone reminder to participants and ask them to complete and send back all the follow-up assessment questionnaire. 200,000 vnd (equal to 12 usd) will be given to participants for complymentary

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Insomnia severity
Time Frame: Insomnia severity will be measured at 3 time points: Baseline, Week 4, and Week 8
The Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) is used to measure insomnia severity among participants. This instrument had been validated translated into Vietnamese previously and was being used in the cross-sectional study with high reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.92).
Insomnia severity will be measured at 3 time points: Baseline, Week 4, and Week 8

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Feasibiliy outcomes
Time Frame: The recruitment rate will be measured at baseline
- The recruitment rate will be calculated based on the number of screened patients, the number of eligible patients, the number of eligible patients who finally agree to participate in the study, the number of patients who sign the informed consent form, the reasons for ineligibility and refusal, and the time to recruit enough participants will be recorded.
The recruitment rate will be measured at baseline
Feasibility outcome
Time Frame: The acceptability score of the intervention will be measured at week 4
- The acceptability score of the intervention will be measured by the Intervention Rating Profile (IRP-15), which consists of 15 Likert-type items; the sum of all 15 items ranges from 15 to 90. Higher overall scores indicate greater acceptability. A cutoff mean score (or average item score above 4.0) generally denotes that an intervention is perceived as acceptable and practical
The acceptability score of the intervention will be measured at week 4
Feasibility outcome
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
The attrition rate will be calculated by the number of participants who decide to discontinue the study and the number of participants who are lost to follow-up during the study period. The attrition rate ranges from 0% to 100%, the higher lower attrition rate indicate the better feasible study is.
Through study completion, an average of 1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Phenikaa University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

August 30, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

March 30, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

March 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 27, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 17, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

September 18, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 18, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 17, 2026

Last Verified

September 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • PKA2

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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