NCT06603896

Effects of Different Aroma-therapies on Nursing Students.

Not yet recruiting NA Last updated 19 September 2024

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Aromatherapy in Nausea in 100 participants. Not yet recruiting.

Timeline

1 October 2024

Primary endpoint
31 December 2025

31 December 2025

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Pace University
Phase	NA
Status	Not yet recruiting
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	single group
Masking	single
Primary purpose	basic science
Enrollment	100
Start date	1 October 2024
Primary completion	31 December 2025
Estimated completion	31 December 2025

Drugs / interventions tested

• Aromatherapy — full drug profile →

Conditions studied

• Nausea — all drugs for Nausea →
• Stress — all drugs for Stress →
• Anxiety — all drugs for Anxiety →
• Aromatherapy — all drugs for Aromatherapy →

Sponsor

Pace University

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Nausea or Stress. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of lavender and citrus inhalation aromatherapy on anxiety, test anxiety and sleep quality in Pace University sophomore, junior and senior nursing majors. Anxiety, particularly test anxiety, is a ubiquitous problem among nursing students. Test anxiety is a type of state anxiety experienced as concern or fear before, during, or following a test or performance assessment. While some anxiety may enhance the performance of a student, test anxiety often negatively effects performance. Although test anxiety can be incapacitating to any student, in nursing students it can not only have a negative impact on learning, it is a major cause for under-achievement and prevents some students from reaching their academic potential since they are enrolled in a high-stakes program.

Treatment for test anxiety includes counseling, desensitization therapy, relaxation therapies, and aromatherapy. Aromatherapy with its focus on the therapeutic use of plant oils has the ability to decrease anxiety in humans through the use of natural oils particularly Lavandula angustifolia (lavender) without the potential for adverse reactions or side effects of conventional anxiolytic drugs.

Research on the efficacy of aromatherapy on test anxiety in college and nursing students shows mixed results. A variety of designs and essential oil scents, either mixed or single, were used with subjects, e.g., lavender, rosemary, peppermint, lemon and the vehicles used to administer the oils, e.g., room diffused inhalation, non-absorbent cloth infused lavender for the aromatherapy vary.

However, studies using lavender essential oil to reduce anxiety in college students, nursing students, and patients, demonstrated that lavender overall acted as an effective anxiolytic in reducing the stress of test taking, especially with lower levels of anxiety. Thus lavender essential oil could benefit nursing students in reducing test anxiety, and has great potential in benefiting all students in test and anxiety reduction, provided the person is not allergic to the oil. There is support for the notion that aromatherapy is a safe intervention, in a systematic review on the anxiolytic effects of aromatherapy in people with anxiety symptoms, no participants reported experiencing any adverse effects., The use of lavender also appears to help sleep without the adverse effects of commonly used drugs. The anxiolytic effects of the oil might reduce unhealthy behaviors that students engage in, e.g. alcohol and drug use/overuse, to reduce stress and relax, and positively affect sleep. In a 2015-2016 study of Pace nursing students, the results showed improvement in sleep and test anxiety, although the sample was small.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial.