The Effect of Alpinia Galanga Warm Compress in Reducing Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Intensity in the Elderly: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Backgrounds: Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes inflammation and swelling of the synovial membrane. In patients with advanced stages, it will make the patient unable to carry out daily activities and his quality of life decreases.The study at to know the effect of Alpinia Galanga Warm Compress in Reducing Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Intensity in the Elderly.Methods: The method of the research was used quasi experiment by using one group pre-test and post-test design without control group. This study was conducted on 45 patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis in Guna Bakti Foundation in Medan, Indonesia. The research process began with measuring the intensity of pain in all of patient using an observation sheet and numerical pain intensity scale before being given a warm galangal compress (pretest), then a warm galangal compress was carried out for 20 minutes, after which it was measured again (posttest) the intensity of the pain scale. Results: Based on the results of the study, 80% of respondents experienced a decrease in the Rheumatoid arthritis pain scale as a result of giving warm galangal compresses. From the significance value of the Wilcoxon test results obtained p-value <0.001 which value is smaller than the error level (α) 0.05 or with a significance of 95%, then the hypothesis Ho is rejected while Ha is accepted. The conclusion of this study is the effect of Alpinia galanga warm compress in reducing rheumatoid arthritis pain (p<0.001).Conclusion: Galangal warm compresses are effective in reducing Rheumatoid Arthritis pain. Therefore, such interventions are recommended for these patients.