The effects of aromatherapy massage with mint and sweet almond oils on the sleep quality of patients with traumatic brain injury admitted to intensive care unit: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Background: Sleep disorder is common among hospitalized patients and also has a high prevalence after traumatic brain injury. Sleep disorder can have serious detrimental effects on disease recovery. One of the simple and non-invasive methods to improve the sleep quality of these patients is use of complementary medicine interventions and aromatherapy massage is one of these methods that may help to improve their sleep quality. Therefore, this study explored the effect of aromatherapy massage with mint and sweet almond oils on the sleep quality of patients with traumatic brain injury in intensive care units.

Methods: This study was a randomized clinical trial. In this study, 60 patients admitted to the intensive care unit were assigned to the intervention and sham therapy groups. The hands and feet of patients in the intervention group were massaged for 20 min with a combination of mint and sweet almond oils for three consecutive days. In the sham therapy group, hands and feet of patients were massaged with Vaseline. Both groups completed demographic questionnaire and Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire (RCSQ) before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 22 via central tendency and dispersion indices (frequency, percentage, average, and standard deviation), the chi-square test, independent t-test, and paired t-test with a significance level of 0.05.

Results: Aromatherapy massage significantly increased the sleep quality of traumatic brain injury patients in intensive care units, meaning that the mean score of sleep quality in the intervention group compared to the sham therapy group after the intervention showed a significant increase. (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: According to the results of this study, the use of aromatherapy with a combination of mint oil and sweet almonds increases the sleep quality of traumatized patients admitted to intensive care units. Using a combination of mint oil and sweet almond oil to increase the sleep quality of patients similar to the research community can be helpful.

Clinical trial registration number: IRCT20151107024919N12.

Keywords: Aromatherapy massage; Intensive care units; Mint; Sleep quality; Sweet almond; Traumatic brain injury.