발마사지가 혈액 암 환자의 피로와 우울에 미치는 효과

The Effects of Foot Massage on Fatigue and Depression among Patients with Hematological Malignancies

Purpose: This study was to investigate the effects of foot massage on fatigue and depression among patients undergoing chemotherapy with hematological malignancies. Method: The subjects were 60 patients hospitalized for undergoing chemotherapy from September 2007 to March 2008, and 30 of them were the experimental group and the other 30 were the control group. To the subjects in the experimental group, foot massage was provided for 30 minutes everyday before the chemotherapy at the same time for 4 days, and the effect was measured on Day 4 and 5 after chemotherapy. Fatigue was measured using the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) developed by Mendoza et al. (1999), and depression was measured by psychiatric rating scale SCL-90-R developed by Derogatis (1977) and translated by Kim Gwang il et al. The data were analyzed through $x^2$-test, Fisher's exact test, unpaired t-test and repeated measures ANOVA using SPSS 12.0. Results: Fatigue and depression were significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group. Even on Day 5, fatigue and depression were significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control after finish foot massage. Conclusion: The findings of the study demonstrated that foot massage would be an effective nursing intervention to reduce fatigue and depression in patients with hematological malignancies.