Effects of Inhalation of Lavender Essential Oil on Open-heart Surgery Pain

This study evaluated the effects of inhalation of Lavender essential oil on the pain of open-heart surgery. The main complaint of patients after open-heart surgery is chest pain. Due to the side effects of opioids, it is important to use a non-invasive way to effectively relieve pain including aromatherapy with analgesics. This study is a clinical single-blind trial. The study was conducted on 40 patients who had open-heart surgery in the Cardiac ICU of two Hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2012. Criteria included: full Consciousness, spontaneous breathing ability and not using synthetic opioids within 2 hours before extubation. After extubation, the patients were asked to mark the intensity of their pain using the visual analogue scale. Then, a cotton swab which was impregnated with 2 drops of Lavender essential oil 2% was placed in their oxygen mask, and they got breath for 10 minutes. Thirty minutes after aromatherapy, they were asked to re-mark their pain intensity. The level of patient’s pain before and after aromatherapy were compared. The pain mean level before and after inhaling Lavender essential oil was 5.60 (SD= 2.262) and 4.98 (SD=2.293), respectively(P-value=0.1>0.05). Therefore, there is no significant difference and the result of study proves that Lavender essential oil inhalation has no effect on reducing the pain of open-heart surgery.