2.1. Study Design and Participants
allergic, cancer, pain, depression, diabetes
CANCER, EAR INFLAMMATION, RECRUITMENT, DIABETES
This is a randomized, single-blinded, placebo-controlled pre-test and post-test design experiment. The study was conducted from 1 March 2022 to 31 July 2022. The study subjects were spine surgery patients who wished to voluntarily participate in the study through a recruitment announcement at the spine center of a tertiary general hospital located in S City. After the researcher provided an explanation of the study to the participants and obtained written consent directly from them, only those who satisfied both the selection and exclusion criteria were selected as the subjects of the study. The selection criteria for subjects are: (a) those who are over the age of 18 and have undergone one or more spinal surgeries; (b) those who have VAS on back and leg pain over 3 points and persistent pain for more than 3 months; (c) those who have DN4 questions more than 4; (d) those who have a PSQI score higher than 5 points; and (e) those who can read and respond to the questionnaires. The exclusion criteria are: (a) those who take sleeping pills and depression medications; (b) those who have been diagnosed with diabetes; (c) cancer patients receiving chemotherapy; (d) those who are currently undergoing or have experience with other complementary and alternative therapies; or (e) those who have ear inflammation or are allergic to band-aids and other bandages.The sample size was calculated by using G power 3.1.9.7. Based on a prior study that used the PSQI [