Objective: To investigate the effects of combining traditional Chinese medicine acupoint sticking with sea salt hot compress on pain relief and promoting physical and mental comfort in infertile women undergoing Hysterosalpingo contrast sonography (HyCoSy).
Methods: Infertile women admitted to Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University from October 2021 to December 2022 were selected and 150 of them were selected by random number table method as the main subjects of the study and divided into three groups. The control group received psychological soothing and music therapy. The hot compress group received a sea salt package hot compress at temperatures of 50-65°C in addition to psychological and music soothing. The combined group received an acupoint application of traditional Chinese medicine along with the hot compress and psychological soothing. Pain levels, assessed using the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), were recorded at different stages of the HyCoSy procedure: cervical dilatation (T0), balloon intubation (T1), contrast medium injection (T2), 10 minutes after examination (T3), 30 minutes after examination (T4), 24 hours after examination (T5), 48 hours after examination (T6), and 1 week after examination (T7).Stacey salpingography adverse reaction grading method: Adverse reactions were evaluated using the grading method for adverse reactions in salpingography designed by Stacey, and adverse reactions were classified into 0 to 4 levels. Stacey grading was used to evaluate pain severity, and adverse reactions of the vagus nerve, anxiety status, and test comfort were also compared among the three groups.
Results: Statistically significant differences in NRS scores were observed among the three groups of patients at various stages of the HyCoSy procedure (T0-T5) (P = .001, P = .001, P = .001, P = .001, P = .012,). The combined group showed a higher proportion of grade 1-2 pain (96%) compared to the control group (83%) and the hot compress group (90%), while the proportion of grade 3 pain (4%) was lower than that in the control group (17%) and the hot compress group (10%) (P < .001). There were no significant differences in anxiety scores before and 1 week after examination (P= .273, P = 1.000, P = .779). The Kolcaba comfort scores were significantly higher in the combined group (67.54±7.58) and the hot compress group (65.02±8.12) compared to the control group (58.96±7.53) (P < .001,). No complications, scalds, or severe skin allergies were reported in any of the three groups during the one-week follow-up.
Conclusions: The combination of acupoint application with hot compress during HyCoSy resulted in reduced pain levels and improved physical and mental comfort in infertile women. This simple and safe approach can be effectively utilized in clinical practice to enhance the patient experience during the procedure.