Effectiveness of emotional freedom techniques (EFT) vs sleep hygiene education group therapy (SHE) in management of sleep disorders among elderly

Randomized trial👥 60 participants⚖️ vs. sleep hygiene education (SHE) group therapyModerate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 Egypt

In plain English. Sixty older adults with trouble sleeping were split into a group taught tapping for insomnia and a group taught standard sleep hygiene habits (like consistent bedtimes and limiting screens). Both groups slept better afterward, but the sleep-hygiene group actually did slightly better overall, with all of them reaching good sleep quality versus about three in four in the tapping group. This is a straightforward, honest result: tapping helped, but wasn't shown to beat a simple, well-established habit-based approach in this older population.

What they found

people took part

60 elderly patients were randomized equally to EFT-Insomnia (EFT-I) or sleep hygiene education (SHE); both groups significantly improved sleep quality, but the effect was more pronounced in the SHE group, with all SHE patients regaining good-quality sleep versus about three-quarters of the EFT group.

How the study worked

Who took partelderly patients with insomnia (n=60)

What they didIn a randomized controlled trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive tapping or a comparison condition, then measured and compared.

Compared withsleep hygiene education (SHE) group therapy

Measured withsleep quality index

💡 Where this could help

Even here, where tapping didn't outperform simple sleep hygiene habits, there's a picture worth holding onto: an older adult with a menu of legitimate, self-administered options for better sleep, tapping being one free choice they can do without a clinician, sleep hygiene another proven one. The honesty of this result is itself useful, pointing older adults toward what currently looks like the stronger bet while keeping tapping, with its no-cost, do-it-yourself appeal, in the conversation.

🔬 What to study next

Since tapping trailed sleep hygiene education here, the next trial should swap the subjective sleep quality index for objective measures — actigraphy or polysomnography — to see whether the self-reported gap between the two approaches holds up under harder scrutiny, or narrows. It would also be worth testing tapping combined with sleep hygiene rather than as a standalone competitor, and tracking cortisol's daily rhythm, since disrupted cortisol patterns are common in older adults with insomnia.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	60 people
Population	elderly patients with insomnia
Comparison group	sleep hygiene education (SHE) group therapy
Outcome measures	sleep quality index
Journal	Scientific Reports
Year	2022
Country	Egypt
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Souilm, N., & et al. (2022). Effectiveness of emotional freedom techniques (EFT) vs sleep hygiene education group therapy (SHE) in management of sleep disorders among elderly. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10456-w

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Sleep & Insomnia