Classical facial massage was applied to the intervention group 2 days a week (with at least 1 day break) for 6 weeks. A session continued 20-30 minutes.

The control group received no intervention. Participants continued their daily routines as usual.

Powder was used as an intermediate product in facial massage application. Before the application, the participants were made to lie in the supine position on the patient's bed. The researchers performed the facial massage by standing at the participants' bedside. During the massage application, three stroking movements were applied to the chin, mouth, nose, eyes and forehead areas, respectively. Kneading motion was then applied to the same areas three times each. Then, stroking was applied to these five areas again and the facial massage application was terminated at the end of approximately 20-30 minutes. Friction movement was applied to the temporal region in each stroking and kneading application

The VAS was used to assess participants' pain intensity. The VAS is a scale ranging from 0 ('No pain') to 10 points ('Unbearable pain') on a horizontal line. According to the VAS, '0' means no pain, while 10 points means severe pain.

PSS 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 'Never (0)' to 'Very often (4)'

• PSS-10 takes a value between 0 and 40 points and a high score indicates a high level of stress PSS 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 'Never (0)' to 'Very often (4)'
• PSS-10 takes a value between 0 and 40 points and a high score indicates a high level of stress 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 'Never (0)' to 'Very often (4)'
• PSS-10 takes a value between 0 and 40 points and a high score indicates a high level of stress PSS is a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 'Never (0)' to 'Very often (4). Minimum score of the scale is 0 while the maximum score is 40. High scores indicates a high level of stress.