The effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation on sleep quality in chronic insomnia disorder

Backgroundand Aim:Acupuncture is one of the most common methods of complementary medicine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate theeffect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation on sleep quality in the patients with chronic insomnia.Materials and Methods: Thisstudy was a single-blindclinical trial in which 40 patients with chronic insomnia were randomly placed into intervention (TEAS) and control (sham TEAS) groups. The acupuncturepoints including SP6, HT7 andLI4 wereselected according to the medical guideline of traditional Chinese medicine. The stimulation was performed for 8 sessions, twice a week for one month. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and actigraphywere used to evaluate the patients' sleep quality before and after intervention.Results:Results showedno significant differences in the mean scores of PSQI between the two groups before and after the intervention (p>0.05). In regard to the objective characteristics of sleep quality,total sleep time in the intervention group significantly increased (p=0.015). These alterationswere not significant in the sham TEAS group (p=0.502).Conclusions: The results showed that TEAS can be effective in increasing the total sleep time in the patientswith chronic insomnia disorder and this effect can be detectable by a monitoring instrument such as actigraphy.