The Effect of Foot Reflexology on the Reduction of Chronic Low Back Pain
Document Type : Original Article
Abstract
Introduction: Over 80% of people experience low back pain at least once in their life, which may turn into chronic low back pain over time. Since most of the patients tend to take non-aggressive and non-medicinal treatments with low health risks and complications, this study aims at investigating the effect of foot reflexology as a safe, refreshing treatment on the reduction of chronic low back pain. Previous studies by foreign scholars have confirmed that reflexology may reduce chronic low back pain; however, few domestic studies have examined this issue. Therefore, the main objective of the present study was to answer the question whether foot reflexology affects the reduction of chronic low back pain. Material and Methods: The study takes on a practical and quasi-experimental design. The participants were 24 male patients with chronic low back pain as diagnosed by physicians and criteria of research. The subjects were randomly assigned into one of the two equal groups: people of experimental or control group. As a pre-test, Pain intensity using the VAS (visual analog scale) was measured and the reflexology on the experimental protocol was applied. While the treatment was being performed on the experimental group, the control group received no therapeutic treatment and were engaged in their routines. To process the raw data, SPSS software, version 18 was used. Subsequently, dependent t-test (inter-group comparison) and P- values were used to interpret the data and examine the significance of research hypotheses. Besides, one-way ANOVA and LSD test were used to compare the means of the groups. Results: The findings of the study confirmed the efficacy of foot reflexology in reducing chronic low back pain (P<0.005) and indicated a significant difference between the mean pain intensity in the experimental group as measured by VAS index before and after the foot reflexology treatment (P<0.005). Accordingly, the mean low back pain in experimental group was 5.95 in the pretest and 4.05 in the posttest, which indicated 31% pain reduction. Discussion and Conclusion: According to the positive outcomes of this procedure, it is concluded that reflexology can be regarded as a non-aggressive, supplementary procedure in treating patients with chronic low back pain
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