Effect of Aromatherapy on headache in Middle-aged Women with Recurrent Headaches
Jung-Hee Cha, RN, PhD, Out patient nursing department, Kangnam St. Mary’s hospital, Seoul, South Korea, Hee-Seung Kim, RN, PhD, School of Nursing, Catholic University, Secho-ku, South Korea, and Myung-Ja Kim, RN, PhD, College of Nursing, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, South Korea.
Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to know the effect of aromatherapy on headache in middle-aged women with recurrent headaches.
Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to know how to use the aromatherapy for headaches
Purpose: The purpose of this study aimed to evaluate the effect of aromatherapy on headache in middle-aged women with headaches. ³À½]">Method: Forty subjects completed the entire study, 19 participants were randomly assigned to an experimental group and 21 to a control group. Inhalation as a method of aromatherapy was conducted for 15 times (2 minutes per inhalation, 3 times per day) to the experimental group. Basil, lavender, rosemary and rose were prepared at theratio of 1:1:1:1, respectively for the aromatherapy. Headache was measured by the standardized visual analogue scale. The horizontal line of 0~10 cm in this tool is stated 0 at the very left side (no pain) and 10 at the very right side (serious pain) which offer the participants to rate the intensity of pain.Results: The change of headache score between pre-and post-treatment in the experimental group (-6.0 points) was significantly greater than that in the control group (-3.2 points) (P =0.001). During the experiment, 5.3% of the experimental group and 38.1% of control group took acetaminophen as the relief medication. Conclusion: These results suggest that aromatherapy is very effective in reducing in headache and taking acetaminophen in middle-aged women with recurrent headache.