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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to learn about how lavender aromatherapy affects pain and blood pressure of post-partum women.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to understand how lavender aromatherapy can be used as complementary intervention and how it can improve providing nursing care.
Methods: The study utilized a longitudinal quasi-experimental non-equivalent pretest-posttest design. Subjects were chosen through purposive sampling (n=20) that passed the inclusion criteria (a) 18-35 years old, (b) first 24-hour postpartum, (c) experiencing post-partum pain, (d) have not yet taken pain medication, and (e) willing to participate. Researchers used numeric pain scale to assess pain level with blood pressure assessment as an adjunct to measure pain objectively. Lavender aromatherapy was administered by putting 2 drops of pure (100%) lavender oil to handkerchief (2x2 inches) and was placed on the clothes of the subject above left collarbone.
Results: Data revealed that pain decreases however, difference in the p-value (0.16) was greater than 0.05 (significant level) thus shows no significance. Systolic blood pressure yielded a decrease of 70mmHg showing significant difference since the p-value (0.0095) was lower than 0.05. However, no difference was noted in the diastolic blood pressure (p-value of 1.0> 0.05). Results also shows a high correlation of pain and systolic blood pressure since the computed t value (3.771) was greater than the tabular value of 2.31 at 0.05 significant level.
Conclusion: Lavender aromatherapy appears to be effective in decreasing level of pain among postpartum women. However larger sample is highly recommended and numeric pain assessment scale must be enhanced to accurately measure subjective pain to confirm its efficacy.
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