AI Article Synopsis

  • Patients in ICUs often experience pain, which can hinder their recovery, prompting a study to compare the effects of aromatherapy with lavender and Citrus aurantium essential oils against a placebo.
  • The study involved 150 conscious ICU patients, who were randomly assigned to receive either lavender oil, Citrus aurantium oil, or a normal saline placebo during a 30-minute aromatherapy session on the second day of their stay.
  • Results indicated significant reductions in pain scores for both essential oil groups compared to the placebo, with the lavender group showing the most improvement three hours post-intervention.

Article Abstract

Background: Conscious patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) suffer from pain for various reasons, which can affect their recovery process.

Objective: The present study compared the effects of aromatherapy with Citrus aurantium and lavender essential oils against placebo for reducing pain in conscious intensive care patients.

Design, Setting, Participants And Interventions: This study was a parallel randomized placebo-controlled trial. The ICUs of two educational hospitals in Kerman in Southeastern Iran were the study setting. One hundred and fifty conscious intensive care patients were randomly divided into three groups using a stratified block randomization method. Two groups received aromatherapy with essential oils: one with lavender and the other with C. aurantium; these patients received a 30-minute therapy session using their assigned essential oil on the second day of their intensive care stay. The placebo group used 5 drops of normal saline instead of essential oil during their session.

Main Outcome Measures: Patient's pain was assessed using a visual analog scale before the aromatherapy intervention, as well as immediately after and one and three hours after intervention.

Results: The mean pain score of the lavender group was 40.01 before the aromatherapy intervention and fell to 39.40, 30.60 and 23.68 immediately after the intervention, and at hour one and three post-intervention, respectively. The mean pain score of the C. aurantium group was 45.48 before the intervention and was reduced to 32.34 at three hours after the intervention. The mean pain of the placebo group decreased from 42.80 before the intervention to 35.20 at three hours after the intervention. Pain scores of all groups decreased during the study (P < 0.001). The mean pain of the lavender group was significantly lower than that of the placebo group at three hours after the intervention.

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that aromatherapy with lavender essential oil reduced pain in conscious ICU patients. Our data could not justify the use of C. aurantium for reducing pain in this population.

Trial Registration: No. IRCT20170116031972N9 (https://en.irct.ir/trial/40827).

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joim.2021.01.006DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

intensive care
20
conscious intensive
12
three hours
12
citrus aurantium
8
pain
8
pain conscious
8
parallel randomized
8
randomized placebo-controlled
8
placebo-controlled trial
8
essential oils
8

Similar Publications

Background: Computed tomography angiography of the head (CTAH) is not routinely obtained during the initial evaluation of patients with traumatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH); however, it is useful for diagnosing vascular pathologies that may have led to the bleed. The aims of this study were to identify traumatic ICH patient characteristics on presentation that are associated with positive CTAH findings to elucidate which ones should prompt a CTAH and compare outcomes of patients with positive and negative CTAH findings.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of 522 patients who had blunt traumatic ICH and subsequently received CTAH between January 1, 2017, and January 1, 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Multiple intensive care units shared core knowledge, skills, and competencies but provided separate orientations leading to inconsistencies in practice, variations in onboarding, and poor use of resources. In this article, the methods of aligning the nursing professional development practitioner roles to the process of standardizing a core curriculum are described. This collaborative initiative sought to increase the knowledge and comfort of the new nurses while setting precedence for collaboration with educational endeavors between the units.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The relationships between pectoralis muscle parameters and outcomes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remain uncertain.

Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library from 1 January 2019 to 1 May 2024 to identify non-overlapping studies evaluating pectoralis muscle-associated index on chest CT scan with clinical outcome in COVID-19 patients. Random-effects and fixed-effects meta-analyses were performed, and heterogeneity between studies was quantified using the I2 statistic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!