Integrating Auricular Point Acupressure Into Real-world Nursing Practice to Manage Cancer-related Pain

Cancer-related pain (CRP) is considered one of the most challenging symptoms that cancer patients experience. Opioid use is the most common strategy to manage pain. However, pharmacological treatments are associated with a variety of adverse side effects, including drowsiness, constipation, dry mouth, and the potential for addiction. As a result, up to 52% of cancer patients do not receive adequate analgesic medication. The high prevalence of pain and ineffective CRP management highlight the limitations of current CRP strategies. An effective, nonpharmacological patient-managed strategy—that has potential to provide quick and low-cost pain relief without new side effects—is an essential next step to manage CRP.

Auricular point acupressure (APA), a non-invasive and nonpharmacological patient-managed strategy, can be an innovative solution for CRP. APA is derived from Chinese Medicine and is different from auricular acupuncture, which is an invasive (using needles) and passive treatment (administered by a licensed practitioner). APA is a non-invasive and active treatment for patients with pain and other symptoms. It involves needleless, acupuncture-like stimulation of ear points. Small seeds are taped on specific ear points for stimulation by patients. Once the seeds have been taped on the patient's ear by the skilled provider, the patient is able to co-manage patient's treatment at home. APA is popular in Taiwan, China, and Europe. Though its use is limited in the U.S., a limited number of clinical trials have supported APA. To achieve pain relief, the participant presses on the seeds to stimulate ear points three times daily, three minutes per time, for a total of nine minutes per day. APA provides pain relief within 1-2 minutes after ear stimulation and also sustains pain relief for one month after a 4-week APA intervention. The rapid pain relief makes APA an attractive strategy to manage CRP.

The investigators' team has conducted a series of APA studies among patients with (1) chronic low back pain, (2) aromatase inhibitor musculoskeletal symptoms (AIMSS), (3) persistent post-mastectomy pain, and (4) chemotherapy-induced neuropathy (CIN). All of the investigators' pilot studies demonstrated better than a clinically significant pain reduction (30% reduction) after 4 weeks of APA and sustained effects for 1-month. Significant plasma inflammatory changes (IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, Tumor Necrosis Factor α, and IFNγ) were found after 4 weeks, indicating that APA may affect brain macrophage-cells resulting in inflammatory cytokines alterations, leading to sustained pain relief at 1-month follow-up. Based on these findings, the investigators believe APA would be particularly suitable to reduce CRP. More importantly, easy implementation of APA and its immediate and lasting pain relief can empower and motivate cancer patients to adhere to APA treatment and allows patients to engage other forms of pain intervention, such as maintaining and/or increasing physical activity as a by-product of improved analgesia.

Nurses are the patient's first line of support in managing CRP; however, nurses have limited tools available to accomplish this. The most common treatments that nurses have at nurses' disposal are the usage of analgesics or referrals to specialty consultations. Once patients are referred, the role of nurses as cohesive guides and caretakers is often lost. To address this dilemma, patients and nurses need access to a therapy that can quickly relieve the pain, which, in turn, reduces the analgesic use and encourages patients and nurses to engage in other pain interventions. Due to the non-invasive characteristic of APA, nurses can learn APA and incorporate it into nurses' practice to provide pain relief and augment the effects of other pain interventions.

The aims of this proposal are to (1) examine the feasibility of providing a training course of APA for clinical oncology nurses which can integrate APA into real-world nursing care settings and (2) examine the effectiveness of APA on CRP under the usual conditions.