By JULIE MINDA
A study completed by a clinical team at SSM Health's St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wis., has found that lavender aromatherapy can help reduce side effects for patients recovering from surgery. The team plans to make the therapy available to patients hospital-wide in 2017 as part of a comfort care menu.
The "patient-centered comfort team" conducted the aromatherapy study between May 2015 and January with 150 inpatients recovering from total knee replacement. The team offered half the patients a lavender scented patch to wear on their skin or hospital gown positioned near their faces, so that the patient inhaled the lavender. Study administrators asked the patients as well as 75 patients in a control group to rate their pain, nausea and anxiety — on a scale from one to 10 — at two, four, eight and 12 hours post-operation.
The lavender patch studied by a team at SSM Health’s St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wis., is designed to be affixed near patients’ faces, so that they can smell the scent.
Analysis of the results revealed that patients who wore the lavender aromatherapy patch had less nausea and anxiety and increased comfort as compared to those in the control group. The results were statistically significant, according to information from the hospital.
Clinical nurse specialist Jo Goffinet leads the hospital's patient comfort team and was principal investigator for the study. She and colleague Chris Baker first heard about the lavender patches at a nursing conference they attended in 2014. Baker is part of the comfort team and administrative director of St. Mary's center for professional practice and development, a practice home for advanced practice and specialty care nurses.
Goffinet discovered when investigating the aromatherapy patch for potential use at St. Mary's that little research had been done on its efficacy. She and her team decided to study the impact of aromatherapy on patient pain, nausea and anxiety, to add to the literature. There are various aromatherapy scents available, including mandarin orange and peppermint. The team chose lavender because that scent had some literature behind it to show its potential for healing. Among the research the group discovered and reviewed were a 2006 pilot study of the effect of lavender aromatherapy on patients undergoing breast biopsy surgery, and a 2011 study on pregnant women undergoing elective C-section. In both studies, patients either received, or had the option to receive, pain-relieving drugs in addition to the lavender. Both studies found that lavender had a statistically significant impact on people's self-reported experience of pain, according to information from Goffinet.
Goffinet said she plans to submit her team's study results to health care journals. With the potential benefits of lavender therapy borne out in the study, the comfort team plans to add this option to a "comfort care menu" of complementary therapies that likely also will include hand massages, pet therapy and music therapy.
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