The Effect of Lavender Aromatherapy on Sleep Quality and Physiological Indicators in Patients after CABG Surgery: A Clinical Trial Study

Background: Sleep disorders occur in the first days after heart surgery. One of the major causes of sleep disorders after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is subsequent changes in physiological indicators, such as systolic blood pressure (BP), respiratory rate (RR), saturation of oxygen (O-2), and heart rate (RR). This study is aimed to determine the effect of lavender aromatherapy on patients' sleep quality and physiological indicators after CABG. Patients and methods: This study was a randomized clinical trial. Patients after CABG surgery were randomly allocated into the lavender and distilled water groups. Patients in the intervention group inhaled lavender while those in the control group inhaled distilled water for 10 hours. Sleep quality and physiological postoperative data were collected for 3 days. Data were analyzed using repeated measurement test, sample t-test, and chi-square test. Results: Repeated measurement test showed no significant difference between the lavender and distilled water groups in terms of systolic BP, RR, O-2 saturation, HR, and body temperature after matching the effect of time and its interactive effect with the intervention (p> 0.05). This test revealed a significant difference between the lavender and distilled water groups in terms of sleep quality (p < 0.001), such that the sleep quality was higher in the lavender group. Conclusion: Lavender aromatherapy can increase patients' sleep quality after CABG surgery. However, it cannot completely treat sleep disorders in such patients. Furthermore, aromatherapy with lavender does not affect the physiological parameters, such as HR, BP, RR, and O-2 saturation.