ABSTRACT Objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of auriculoacupuncture in improving the sleep quality of nursing professionals in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: quasi-experimental before and after study, without a control or matching group performed from May to July 2020, in a referral hospital for infectious diseases in Ceará. The sample consisted of 26 nursing professionals, including nurses and technicians, who performed three sessions of auriculoacupuncture, once a week, for four weeks. Sleep quality was measured by the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index. The effects of the intervention were analyzed by the student's “t” test to compare means between the first and last application, one-way ANOVA with repeated measures and post-hoc Sidak´s test. Results: regarding the components of the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, significant differences were observed between the individuals in the components: subjective sleep quality (p=0.001); sleep latency (p<0.001), sleep duration (p<0.001), habitual sleep efficiency (p=0.011), sleep disorders (p<0.001), sleeping medications (p=0.005) and excessive daytime sleep sleepiness (p<0.001). The overall sleep index also changed significantly (p<0.001). The intervention reduced the sleep quality index score by 52.35%. Conclusion: the changes that occurred were able to change the category in sleep classification through a detailed decrease in the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index scores. Significant differences were observed between the first and final moments in the global index and in all components.