This study examined the effects of a non-pharmacological bedtime intervention (i.e., massage) on the sleep behaviors and the use of "as needed" (prn) sedative-hypnotic drugs by nursing home residents with sleep disorders. The study utilized an A-B-A research design, with the intervention being administered for seven consecutive days for 15 minutes. Twenty-eight participants, age 65 years or older, from four separate nursing homes owned by the same corporation agreed to participate. They were randomly assigned to the intervention or control groups. Heart rate, blood pressure and self-report of relaxation were recorded immediately prior to and following the 15-minute intervention while the sleep measures of sleep latency, waking after sleep onset, and daytime napping were measured for three 24-hour period using actigraphy (e.g., one 24-hour period in each phase - baseline, intervention and withdraw).

Results from the analyses of variance with repeated measures indicated that during the intervention phase, the massage was effective in producing a relaxation response as measured by heart rate (p <.001), systolic blood pressure (p = .01), diastolic blood pressure (p <.01) and scores on the Visual Analog Scale - Anxiety scale (p <.001) in the intervention group. No relaxation responses were observed in the control group Planned comparison analyses were used for the variables assessed during the baseline, intervention and withdraw phases. These analyses indicated a reduction in requests for sleep hypnotic medications for the intervention group during the intervention phase of the study; however, the trend only approached statistical significance ( p = .09). A statistically significant quadratic trend (p < .05) was found for sleep latency, with individuals in the intervention group falling asleep faster than the control group during Week 2 than in Weeks 1 and 3. No significant findings were recorded in relation to the other sleep variables. Qualitative comments from participants offer suggestions both for using massage and treating sleep problems with this population.