Feasibility and effect of emotional freedom therapy on sleep quality in patients with end-stage renal disease receiving maintenance hemodialysis: A pilot study

Randomized trial👥 66 participants⚖️ vs. usual care (no EFT)Moderate rigor✓ Source-checked📍 China

In plain English. Sixty-six people on long-term dialysis for kidney failure — a group that often struggles with poor sleep — were split into a group learning tapping over 12 weeks and a group getting usual care only. The tapping group slept better, felt less anxious and depressed, and had less trouble functioning during the day, and three-quarters said they'd keep using it. This is a pilot study focused partly on whether tapping is even practical for this patient group, and it found that it is, alongside real symptom benefits.

What they found

people took part

66 hemodialysis patients with sleep problems were randomized to a 12-week EFT intervention or control; the EFT group showed statistically significant improvement in anxiety, depression, sleep quality, sleep duration, and daytime dysfunction versus control, and 75% of participants said they would continue practicing EFT.

How the study worked

Who took partpatients with end-stage renal disease on maintenance hemodialysis who reported sleep problems (n=66)

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

Compared withusual care (no EFT)

Measured withPittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), interdialysis weight gain

💡 Where this could help

If tapping keeps helping dialysis patients sleep better and feel less anxious, it could mean people tethered to a machine several times a week for a chronic illness — who face enormous physical and emotional burden — get something to practice bedside or at home that costs nothing extra and doesn't interact with their medications. Because it's self-administered once taught, a patient could use it on the nights sleep won't come, without waiting for their next dialysis session or clinic visit.

🔬 What to study next

Dialysis patients already have close biochemical monitoring, which makes this an unusually rich setting to pair EFT with objective markers already being drawn — does better sleep track with the lower interdialytic weight gain seen here, plus changes in inflammatory markers like CRP or IL-6, which run high in end-stage renal disease and are linked to poor sleep and depression? Actigraphy during dialysis nights, and a longer follow-up past 12 weeks, would show whether this is a durable, biologically anchored effect or a short-term mood boost.

The full record

Design	Randomized trial
Participants	66 people
Population	patients with end-stage renal disease on maintenance hemodialysis who reported sleep problems
Comparison group	usual care (no EFT)
Outcome measures	Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), interdialysis weight gain
Journal	Geriatric Nursing
Year	2023
Country	China
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Tang, X., Wang, L., Ni, S., Wu, M., Hu, S., & Zhang, L. (2023). Feasibility and effect of emotional freedom therapy on sleep quality in patients with end-stage renal disease receiving maintenance hemodialysis: A pilot study. Geriatric Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2023.02.021

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